Justifying the Means
by thanks-for-the-breasthat
Summary: Clarke uncovers a secret in Mount Weather that could destroy the shaky peace they've struggled to maintain and the prospect of war couldn't come at a worse time because a baby is on the way and Bellamy will be damned before he lets his sister's kid die in a war he could've stopped.
1. Chapter 1

Bellamy eased into a chair outside the kitchens where the group of the original hundred usually gathered, only now it was just him to eat a quick meal before returning on his rounds observing the guard in their training. Being on the council had its benefits, but equally as many drawbacks: long hours spent in meetings where all Abby and Kane did was argue, fights with Clarke over policy (which admittedly ended in make up sex, so maybe that wasn't such a drawback after all), and much more time observing guard practice than training with them as he would've liked.

He dug into his bland lunch and caught sight of Octavia rounding the outside of the Ark, chatting happily with a girl Bellamy had seen around but had never spoken to. O had a hand on her stomach, just a slight bulge under her loose shirt for now, and laughed at something her friend said.

Bellamy remembered when Octavia had first come bounding up to him after an exceedingly boring council meeting, blurting out that she was pregnant. He'd been too stunned at the news to choose whether to laugh and hug her because his little sister was going to be a _mother_ or to cry and punch a wall because _his little sister was going to be a mother_.

He'd ended up doing both eventually. First there had been the excessive congratulations to she and Lincoln; tight hugs for his sister and pats on the back and handshakes for his brother-in-law while behind his smile all he could think of was that he was shaking the man's hand who was having sex with his little sister. Later on when he was alone in he and Clarke's cabin, he'd sat on the bed and put his head in his hands because, _God_, his sister was a grown woman having her own kids and what did that make him?

Clarke had possibly been just as excited as Octavia when Bellamy had been there for his sister to relay the news. She'd laughed and squealed and immediately started blabbering on about "genetic diversity" and "population expansion" like nobody's business.

Bellamy sighed and put down his fork as the girl Octavia was talking to faced her and touched the baby bump, smiling down at it. She was only two months along and already the most popular person in camp. Babies had been particularly rare (there'd been less than ten births since they'd been on the ground) but Bellamy didn't particularly blame anyone for waiting.

He was going to worry. He always did. But if there was anyone he knew would keep his family safe, it was Lincoln.

Bellamy was so preoccupied with observing his sister that he didn't hear Clarke come up behind him until her hand was on his shoulder and she was sitting in the chair next to him. "Hey, glad I caught you. I've been in the med bay all morning. We finally had to take that girl's tonsils out. I don't know why my mom decided to wait, they were. . . is something wrong?"

He glanced away from his sister to see Clarke biting her lip, her brow furrowed. Bellamy nodded towards Octavia. "I'm just not used to seeing. . . that."

An amused smile touched her lips and then she was the one staring, too preoccupied to notice the way his eyes lingered on her prominent collar bones and the bags beneath her eyes. "Ah," she said gently.

He dug back into his smoked venison and acorn mash. Not exactly the most appetizing, but their winter stores of corn and potatoes were already severely depleted into the brisk month of March.

Clarke sipped at her water. "You want to snap Lincoln's head off, don't you?"

Nothing slipped past her. "I do _not_."

"Maybe not on the surface, but deep, deep down," she said, giving him a knowing stare, leaning forward in her chair, "you're definitely thinking about it."

They were past lying to each other at this point, but there was no way in hell that he'd admit that she was right.

"Mmmhmm," she said with a quirk of her lips. "That's what I thought."

But now his preoccupation with Lincoln's "deflowering" of his sister had shifted. He studied her face for half a second too long, eyes catching on the sharpness to her jawline and the purple circles beneath her eyes.

"Stop looking at me," she said coolly, refocusing on Octavia.

Bellamy only just noticed that she didn't have a plate of food in front of her. "Where's your lunch?"

She shrugged, finally turning to face him. "I'm not hungry."

"You're never hungry." He pushed his plate across the table, a moderate helping of mash still left. He wasn't just going to stand by and watch her thin away into nothing. "Eat mine."

She wrinkled her nose at the old meat and flavorless glop. "I'm good."

He pursed his lips. They'd had this argument before and if this was how she was going to act (like a three year old) than he was more than willing to have it again. "Clarke have you looked in a mirror recently?"

She frowned at that. He only used her name when he wanted to get a point across and he could tell it had gotten her attention.

"You can't live on air and water."

Clarke's eyes flickered to the food and he could practically see the gears turning in her mind, deciding if she'd go for it or not. The fact that she was one of the pickiest eaters alive didn't help matters.

"Hey, you two," Octavia said with a smile, standing across the table. Her smile faded. "Is something wrong?"

Relief flooded Bellamy's chest. At last. Reinforcements. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "Please tell Clarke that she needs to eat something."

Clark looked up at her friend pleadingly, but Bellamy knew that Octavia would be on his side, and sure enough, she looked first to Clarke, then to the plate of half eaten food. "You should listen to him, Clarke. For once he actually knows what he's talking about."

Clarke huffed out a muttered curse but picked up a slice of venison, biting into it and chewing quickly. "Happy now?"

"Not until you finish the whole thing," Octavia insisted, a stern edge coming into her voice. Well damn could she boss people around. Pride surged through him. "I won't have you die of starvation before this baby gets here."

Bellamy nodded his astonished approval to O as his girlfriend picked through the rest of the plate. "I guess you _will_ make a good mom."

Octavia grinned, resting her hands on her hips. "You know it, Bell." Despite her enthusiasm, it was still hard to imagine his twenty-one year old sister with a kid.

Clarke finished and wiped her fingers on her pants. "Maybe I was just a little hungry," she admitted, already looking better, color in her cheeks.

"Want any more?" he offered hopefully, standing to take the empty plate.

He didn't expect her to accept, but she stood quickly. "I can get it myself," she said and a little weight eased off of his shoulders to actually see her enthusiastic about eating. Usually she was too concerned with everyone else's health to worry about her own.

Octavia finally sat down, offering him a fist bump, which he accepted with a laugh. "I guess it's a good thing we're bossy," she said and he shook his head, still smiling.

"So," he began, "I was just wondering. . . Are you tired of all the attention yet?" He was teasing of course.

O smiled knowingly. "I can barely walk three feet without someone coming up to talk and it takes me a good half hour just to cross camp. . ." She was grinning like a madman. "It's like a dream come true." She rubbed at the bulge in her shirt.

Bellamy chuckled, shaking his head. Leave it to Octavia to bask in the popularity that came with a new addition to the family. "One of these days you're going to get tired of it and I'm just going to say 'I told you so.'"

Her lips twisted into a wry smile. "Nothing like looking forward to you gloating in my face _even more_ than you usually do."

"What else is life about?"

Clarke came back with a half-full plate that she set down in front of her.

Bellamy knew if he made a sarcastic comment towards her sudden interest in eating she'd refuse just to spite him, so he only eyed the decent-sized portion of trout—probably just caught that morning—and watched her take the first bite.

"How are you feeling?" she asked Octavia after swallowing. Bellamy relaxed a little when she went for a second fork-full. "I've been reading up on pregnancy and so has my mom. Since we haven't seen that many cases yet, I know we're both looking forward to getting some information from you to see how accurate the books and programs are."

Octavia shrugged nonchalantly as if she were just having a bout of hiccups instead of growing another human. "I've been feeling pretty great actually. I mean, that glow that they talk about? It's totally real. I'm pretty sure my hair is getting thicker," she pulled her braids over her shoulder and leaned in towards Clarke. "Plus, between you and me, I think my boobs are already getting bigger."

Clarke laughed and Bellamy winced. "Come on, O, I'm right here."

The two women ignored him.

"No morning sickness?"

"Maybe a little here and there, but nothing that ever makes me want to lie around all day."

"What about—" Clarke started up again.

"Easy there, Princess," Bellamy interrupted, a hand on her arm. "This isn't an interrogation."

Clarke pursed her lips and folded her hands together, turning to him with a sweet smile. "Do you want to die today?"

Bellamy tried to keep a straight face but a smile slipped through. "I'd drag you down with me."

"Does medical talk make you queasy?" she teased with a mock pout.

He looked between the two women, both bearing the same amused expression. "Just because I can tolerate all your. . . lady talk"—Clarke and Octavia looked at each other and snickered—"doesn't mean I _want_ to."

Octavia rolled her eyes, still half-laughing. "Oh all right," she said with a dramatic sigh. "Let's talk about something else. So when are the two of _you_ going to pop out a baby?"

Clarke choked on her fish and Bellamy's eyes bugged out of his head. He managed to give his girlfriend a few pats on the back as she cleared her throat. Meanwhile Octavia looked as smug as the cat who swallowed the canary.

Panic surged through his heart. Was he too young to go into cardiac arrest? Because this sure was what he imagined it would feel like. "Jesus Christ, O, you can't just ask that!"

Clarke took a swig of water and Bellamy wasn't sure if her face had gone as red as a tomato from choking or from the subject matter.

"I'm just asking what everyone else is thinking," Octavia said innocently.

Bellamy avoided Clarke's eyes and shifted in his chair. "There's no way everyone in the camp is thinking that." He wasn't going to lie, he'd thought about the prospect of marrying Clarke before, of coming back to a cabin with a cradle in the corner and a blond little curly-haired toddler hanging onto his leg.

Octavia shrugged. "Believe what you want. There's bets going around about you guys."

"Bets? Seriously?" Clarke groaned. "What are we, thirteen?"

"No, we're a bunch of twenty-somethings with no entertainment besides guessing when you're going to finally make it official," Octavia said as if it were obvious, rolling her eyes. "I've got a lot of money down on you, so don't screw up." She pointed a firm finger at the both of them.

Bellamy scrambled for a response and opted for humor. There was no way he was going to talk about this now. He looked to his girlfriend with a sly grin, waggling his eyebrows in mock seduction. "What do you say, babe? Want to tie the knot?"

Clarke shook her head and looked at him with that "really?" pursed-lip, raised-eyebrows deadpan glare. Then her expression slipped and her eyes crinkled at the corners. This was all just teasing, right? Right?!

"If you ever want an answer to that, you're gonna have to do a lot better than that."

Octavia was practically cackling from across the table but Bellamy ignored her.

"Also," Clarke added, standing up and pushing her chair back. "If you ever call me 'babe' again, I'll slip a laxative into your breakfast and make sure we're in meetings all day." She kissed his cheek and whirled away.

"That's even more evil than I ever would have thought," he called after her.

She turned back to grin at him. "You must be rubbing off on me."

"God," Octavia muttered. "Get a _room_."

* * *

><p>Clarke was the first one to she and Bellamy's cabin that night and took the time to appreciate the quiet as she knelt to build a fire in the iron grate made out of scrap metal from the dropship. As soon as smoke began to float up the chimney, she stood, brushing her palms on her thighs.<p>

She and Bellamy had been sharing a cabin for over a year now, sleeping in the same bed and living together in a way that really was like being married without the label. He kissed her goodnight and made breakfast in the morning; she washed his clothes and took care of him when he was injured and too stubborn to listen when she told him to stay in bed.

They'd blown off the marriage conversation at lunch as nothing more than a joke, but now that they'd be alone. . . She wondered what he'd say to it then.

But there were more pressing matters at hand, she insisted to herself as she crossed the small cabin to their bed, sitting on the edge to step out of her boots and pull off her jacket.

She couldn't help smiling to herself at the thought of Lincoln and Octavia's baby. A new life, a building block to a fresh start on Earth and a life on the ground. She'd helped her mother with the other deliveries on the ground, of course, but there had only been seven of them so far, and she knew that a real midwife or obstetrician would deal with dozens of births a week. That's why they had to prepare as much as they could for whatever complications might arise. The stakes were higher now that the face on the table wasn't just anyone, but Octavia.

Clarke got a washrag from the small chest against one wall and stripped out of her shirt and bra, the cool spring air pricking her bare skin. The fire had just begun to pick up, sending arching shadows flickering across the cramped cabin, the lighting relaxing Clarke as much as the feel of washing the day's dirt away did.

A baby would be exciting, especially now that it was in the "family" but the risks were just too great to ignore. Just because they were settled in Camp Jaha pretty permanently now and that there was shaky peace with the Grounders and Mount Weather didn't mean that there was any less of a threat. Nothing else mattered than keeping their people safe.

She pushed back the worry. There'd be plenty of time for that at the council meeting tomorrow. Kane sat as chancellor now, with she and Bellamy as the driving force behind nearly all of the modifications since landing. The other's seemed to trust their judgment, but not without plenty of argument.

She squeezed the excess water from the rag and after she'd wiped her face clean, started on her neck and shoulders. Each cabin had a rainwater collection barrel behind it, the runoff from the roof falling through several different natural filtration systems before it was ready to use. She'd gotten a bowl before coming inside, never growing tired of the excess she hadn't been used to on the Ark.

Clarke drove away the stress of the day—the impromptu surgery on the girl who'd had to have her infected tonsil's removed, the odd conversation with Bellamy and Octavia, the ever-present weight of running the camp—and was so focused on slowing her breathing, that she didn't hear the front door open.

"Well, I'm glad I got home when I did."

She jolted around at the noise, covering her chest, and saw Bellamy standing in the threshold, chilly air breezing in around him. "Shut the door!" she insisted, goose bumps rising on her arms.

Nerves twisted in her stomach. _It won't be weird_, she thought as he chuckled and stepped inside, his boots heavy on the wooden floorboards.

Octavia's teasing remarks echoed in her mind. Marriage and babies, what a loaded subject wrapped into one big mess of a conversation.

She turned back around, facing the wall, wishing she could just melt into the mattress. She slopped the wash rag into the bowl and reached for a sleep-shirt she'd already laid out on the bed.

"Hey," he said quietly, coming up behind her and bending to brush her hair from her neck, pressing a kiss into the bend of her shoulder. His cold palms slipped around her waist and she paused, the shirt in her hands.

She chewed on her lip as the mattress dipped with his weight. "I could've sworn I had something to tell you, but now I can't remember at all," he smiled into her bare shoulder. So much for talking, then.

"I'm not that distracting," she snorted, looking away from him. She'd almost prefer him to just say something about it than just ignoring that it ever happened. Typical man.

She pulled away from him to slide her—his, really—shirt over her head and reached for the wire brush on the bedside table. He didn't come any closer as she sat cross-legged on the mattress and started working her way through the tangles in her hair.

"Try telling me that when we're in a council meeting and you won't stop grabbing my leg under the table." He leaned over and began to work the laces from his boots.

She couldn't resist a smile. "That was one time!" She laid back to shuck off her pants, nearly sighing at the relief of bare skin (or maybe more with relief that he wasn't acting awkward).

"And I'll never let you live that down."

"It's not like you didn't enjoy it," she scoffed and tossed her pants towards the basket for their dirty clothes.

"I was trying to think about food distribution!"

Clarke smirked and watched him for a few seconds, tucking his socks inside his boots and setting them neatly aside. Old habits die hard. Then she crawled over to him, knees on either side of his hips, and rested her chin on his shoulder. "It was just Kane rambling on, you liar."

His head turned slightly to look at her with raised eyebrows. "Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't."

Either way, she pressed her face into his neck, wrinkling her nose when the old scent of sweat, dirt, and damp wood hit her. "You smell."

He snorted. "I was chopping wood all afternoon for the fires _you_ want. I'm not going to smell like roses. It's part of the job description."

"I get cold!" she only insisted as he stood and pulled his shirt from his head, shadows catching in the dips of his muscles.

"Yeah, yeah, at least it'll be warmer soon." She'd offered to help chop firewood before, but he'd always insisted that he could manage. Probably one of his ridiculous complexes.

Clarke watched him go for the rag, closing his eyes as he scrubbed his face, running a damp hand through his dark curls.

She chewed on her lip curiously and blatantly admired the curves and swells of his pectoral and abdominal muscles, the way his biceps shifted with every motion his arms made.

"For someone who always gets on me about staring, you're doing a great job of being a hypocrite," he said without looking up.

She didn't even flinch. "If I looked like that, I probably wouldn't mind people looking at me." After both he and Octavia had gotten on her about eating, she'd found a mirror and looked at herself, taking in the sharpness to her features. Bellamy was all the opposite: warm flesh and corded muscle. There were reasons girls were jealous of Clarke, and all of them were her boyfriend's body.

He gave her a pointed look, moving the bowl to the table on the opposite wall and then coming to sit on the mattress next to her. He rested his hands on her bare knees, looking her straight in the eye. "Don't say things like that." He swallowed and leaned forwards to press his lips to hers. "You're absolutely beautiful."

She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder. His warm hands slid up her legs to circle around her waist and he pulled her into his lap. They'd have to talk about what Octavia had said eventually, but for now, she was just content to sit in the quiet with him rubbing her back.

Her thoughts blurred together as his hands slipped beneath her shirt, tracing patterns on her bare back and at some point, her lips started moving against the smooth skin of his shoulder. He lowered his lips to her neck, brushing her hair out of the way to kiss a patient line along her vein.

His touches were unhurried and gentle as he rubbed down her back, over her hips to slide along the curve of her thighs. A low fire leapt to life in her belly, spreading warmth through her limbs with the soft kisses he trailed over her collar bone, up her jaw to claim her lips, tongue sweeping through her mouth.

He worked her shirt up, and she lifted her arms for him to pull it off, his bare chest hot against hers, arms warm and heavy as they encased her.

All the worries melted from her mind when he tucked her under him, lowering her head back onto the pillows, his hips resting on top of hers. It had been at least two weeks since they'd done anything more than kiss, that was just how their lives worked, the business of the council and keeping everyone alive hindering the time they had to relax alone together.

It was too easy to forget how many mouths there were to feed when Bellamy's hand was tugging her underwear down her legs, easy to forget the stress of modifying the government to suit Earth when he was hard against her stomach and his open mouth was nibbling at her throat.

She rolled her hips up against his, their desperate breaths the only sound over the crackling fire and the occasional creak of the bed. Warmth gathered in her stomach as she reached between them to scrabble at his pants, pushing them down his legs with her feet.

His hands were everywhere on her all at once, and she gasped into his shoulder when he pushed into her slowly with a low groan.

He muttered something under his breath as he held himself up on one elbow to hike her leg over his shoulder, sliding in even deeper.

Clarke shuddered and started the steady roll of her hips against his, meeting his slow thrusts. They were sweaty and trembling by the time he reached between them to find the button that would send her over the edge and she gasped and moaned at the heat pooling between her legs, fingers digging into his tight shoulders.

Every movement was steady and deliberate, pleasure throbbing through every nerve in her body a few moments after she felt the rush of heat inside her and his sweaty forehead fell to her shoulder.

Clarke's breath came in uneven pants as she held onto the last few threads of heat coursing through her. Her limbs felt warm and heavy as she untangled herself from him, hands running down his slick skin.

Bellamy pulled out of her and rolled off onto his back, catching his breath. She was still dazed and shaking, the cold air hitting her like a brick as soon as his body heat was gone. Maybe he noticed her discomfort or maybe he just wanted her closer but he looked over and mumbled a "come here" while he opened his arm for her to lay against his side.

She obliged, her thigh over his, head tucked into his shoulder. And then in a sudden, terrifyingly certain rush, she wanted everything Octavia had joked about. She wanted it all: a wedding, a baby, a life with him. As cliché and stupid as it sounded, it was true (or maybe it was just the orgasm messing with her brain. . . she couldn't be for sure).

"Why haven't we done that in so long?" he whispered with a kiss to her temple.

Clarke could feel his heart starting to slow beneath her hand, calming back down to its usual steady pace. She opened her mouth to comment but the words stuck in her throat. What if he didn't want that? What if he was content with things just the way they were: partners in life, _unmarried_ partners in life. Maybe that's why he hadn't said anything earlier.

He reached over to brush a damp curl back from her cheek. "Hmm?" His freckles stood out in the firelight, dusting his cheeks, over his nose.

She looked down, tracing circles across his chest. "Just busy, I guess."

His long exhale ruffled her hair. "That's what we get for both being on the council."

Fatigue was beginning to pull at her limbs, but something had changed in the dynamic somehow, as if they both knew they were thinking about the same thing but neither want to broach the subject.

He took a breath and she thought he might say something, but he only let out the air a few seconds later, palm rubbing her back.

The remembered conversation from that afternoon pulled at her mind. He must have been thinking about the same thing. How could he not? That wasn't just something they should sweep under the rug to forget about, not after everything they'd been through together.

Clarke knew they were moving towards that—weren't they?—she couldn't imagine a life with anyone else because in the past four years, there had _been_ no one else who even came close to Bellamy.

That was how it was; Bellamy and Clarke, the leaders of the hundred, the best team to send out on any mission if you wanted it done right, the driving force behind every decision made about the camp's future. They could manage just fine on their own; they weren't each other's crutch. But together, they were invincible. That was the hard and simple fact.

The thought of taking that last step, bridging the gap between the reality of "wife" and the limbo of "eternal girlfriend" was. . . actually terrifying as much as it was enticing.

Bellamy remained quiet, reaching over his chest to grasp her hand, twining her fingers with his.

She figured the words out in her head just as she did before every difficult conversation. Plan out what you're going to say first so all you have to do is speak the words. _Bellamy, do you think Octavia was right about us making it official?_ No use of the word 'marriage,' more because she was more afraid to say it than she was afraid of scaring him off of the subject.

"Hey, Clarke?" he murmured and her breath hitched at the hesitance in his voice.

"Yes?" she asked tentatively. As much as she was nervous, she was slightly relieved that she wasn't the one who had to bring it up.

He paused. "Don't forget that we have to be up early for the council meeting tomorrow."

She bit her lip, heart falling in her chest. After a moment, she said softly, "I know." Another moment. "Is that it?"

The question hung in the air.

"Yeah, that's it," he responded. "Goodnight."

She bit her lip and peeled herself away from his body, rolling to her side of the bed, goose bumps prickling her legs as she slid under the cold blankets. "Night."

Clarke stared at the wall for what seemed like an hour until she heard him shift on the mattress, his foot brushing hers.

She curled inwards, fatigue easing her into a quiet—yet far from blissful—slumber.

**First chapter, yay! Since I'm still on break, updates will probably be as fast as I can crank these puppies out (maybe every other day if I'm lucky) but once I go back to school in a week, I'll probably go on an update schedule. As always, thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**In which Clarke and Bellamy are stubborn, my brotp has a few moments, and there's some random Linctavia fluff.**

"Council, please come to session," Kane said, the resounding snap of the metal cup against the table quieting the small talk.

Clarke shifted in her chair and flipped through the notes typed out on the tablet screen before her. General business of the council: settling disputes, more building plans, supply distribution, as well as talk of the Grounder and Mount Weather peace.

"Hopefully we'll be able to get through this as quickly as possible," Kane said, looking around at the six other seated members. "I know everyone has their business to get on with."

In the seat next to her, Clarke heard Bellamy's jacket rustling and she resisted the urge to look over at him.

"First up, tomorrow, Abby, you're going up to Mount Weather for the supply trade?"

Clarke's mother folded her arms on the table and shook her head. "I was just about to bring that up. I have a patient that I don't feel comfortable leaving. Clarke should be just as capable to go as I am." She glanced to her daughter.

Clarke only nodded. A trip to Mount Weather wasn't exactly on the top of her list, but it'd been a while since she'd gotten out of the camp; maybe it would do her some good. "That sounds fine to me." Usually there were two people to go, most of the time one of the guard serving as escort.

Bellamy cleared his throat. "And I'll go with her."

Hesitance hit her first and she balked at the proposition, the frightening fact of that inevitable conversation that would come up on that two hour walk to the military base sending nerves fluttering in her stomach.

Kane frowned at the tablet in front of him and flipped through a few slides. "Actually, you won't. You're scheduled to oversee a routine training mission out at Sleeter Lake for the next three days."

Clarke eyed Bellamy's screen as he flipped through to check the dates for himself. He looked like he was gathering himself to say something, but she piped up instead: "I think it would be good to get some other eyes in Mount Weather. If it ever comes to it, it'll help if not just a handful of us know our way around inside."

Bellamy's frown didn't sway her opinion on the subject despite his obvious dislike of her going with anyone but him, the big jealous ass. There was a tense air between them that the other council members seemed to pick up on. She'd been dressed and out of the cabin before he'd even awoken that morning, off to eat a quick breakfast by herself before heading to the council meeting. The first she'd seen of him was when he'd walked into the windowless room still half asleep, hair swept up in uneven tufts.

Abby looked to Kane. "I like the sound of that."

"Well I don't," Bellamy interjected, voice low.

Clarke took a deep breath, folding her palms together on the table in front of her, attempting to keep her voice level. "I'm perfectly capable of handling myself without you."

His lips twitched and he carried on in an annoyingly slow voice, "I _know_ that, I'm just—"

"If you two have something to work out, you're going to have to do that on your own time," Kane cut in. "Bellamy, you're overseeing the guard. Clarke, you're going to Mount Weather with someone else. I'll find a guardsman we can spare unless you have someone in mind."

Bellamy's face was dangerously blank, but he sniffed and rubbed his nose in that frustrating way he did when he was angry and determined to have his way.

Clarke ran through a list of people in her mind, pausing surprisingly not far down, her decision having of course nothing to do with the fact that her choice would infuriate Bellamy even more. "I do."

* * *

><p>"I'm still a little fuzzy on why you decided to choose <em>me<em>," Murphy said within the first few minutes they were alone in the woods, an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, a pistol in a sling on her chest. Just because there was a treaty doesn't mean they still didn't come across a stray Reaper every now and then, or that there weren't those who would see both of them dead if they could. That was the whole reason Murphy was there.

Clarke shrugged, slightly regretting her decision if they were going to have to talk the whole way there. But she'd have to live with her decision because she didn't bring along one of the second most infuriating men in camp just to spite Bellamy (that was just a bonus), it just so happened that she could rely on him. Murphy was predictable, and she knew that somewhere along the years, a sort of trust and reliance had built between him and the rest of the youth first to arrive on the ground.

"I'm not worried about you letting your feelings compromise your decisions." She heard Murphy stop walking and turned to look at him. "Come on, we've got to keep moving." It was already mid-afternoon and they had six miles to cover before dark.

"As flattering as that is, you've peaked my interest. Now I'm curious what stupid thing happened between you and Blake. Who's the bigger idiot, I wonder?"

Clarke shot him a hard glare, clambering over a fallen log. "You want to come with me or not?"

He vaulted over after her. "I never really asked to come in the first place."

"Irrelevant." She readjusted the straps of the backpack already beginning to dig into her shoulders and continued on. "There's nothing wrong with Bellamy and I spending time apart."

Murphy snorted and Clarke dug her fingers into the backpack's straps. "Can you just get to whatever fucking thing is bothering you so I don't have to deal with your relationship angst this entire trip."

"I am not—" Clarke drew a deep breath to calm herself. "You wouldn't understand."

He chuckled. "Oh Clarke," he sighed and she rolled her eyes.

"Don't patronize me."

"Do you want me to stop bothering you about it or are you just going to brood around for the whole time? Also brooding's my thing, no stealing."

"Bellamy won't commit, you ass," she spat out. They were hardly five minutes from camp and already talking about the exact thing she wanted to get off her mind.

"Ahhhh," he said in a long breath, not sounding even slightly surprised. "So you want to seal the deal with legal contract and a white dress so you can ride off into the fucking sunset and terrorize the camp with a whole new batch of Blake brats."

Clarke shook her head at the surprising vividness of his comment and scoffed out a, "I wouldn't say exactly that."

"You just don't want to admit that I hit the nail right on the head."

Even without looking at him, she knew he was smirking. Without thinking, she hiked the backpack higher.

"Want me to carry that for a while?" he offered to her surprise.

Helpful Murphy was a rare sight. Though he was being an ass the rest of the time, so hey, at least not everything was different. "I've got it."

"You're just being stubborn and we both know that," Murphy said and she looked over her shoulder to see him raising his hands in a sarcastic surrender. "Even more evidence you and Bellamy deserve each other."

After a minute or so of quiet walking over the dips and inclines of the trail, Murphy spoke up again. "I'm only going to say this once, and if you ever tell anyone I said this, I'll deny the words ever left my fucking mouth, got that?"

She stared at him wordlessly.

"Look, Bellamy—fuck, I can't believe I'm saying this. . . the guy loves you to a point that I find sickeningly revolting. So don't beat yourself up about it. You want babies? You'll get your damn babies."

Clarke was fully prepared to retaliate and toss around insults, but instead she just blinked in surprise. "Oh, well. . . thanks."

Murphy shook his head as if she'd just told him off. "You two are fucking ridiculous," he muttered, but Clarke couldn't quite bring herself to be mad.

* * *

><p>A little less than halfway to Mount Weather, they took a slight detour to stop by a stream to refill their canteens and Clarke eased the heavy pack off of her shoulders, rubbing some circulation back into them.<p>

"So you gonna tell me what we're giving them or is that some council secret I'm not good enough to know?" Murphy asked as he cupped a handful of spring water to splash over the back of his neck. The day wasn't overly warm but heading up the steady incline had Clarke regretting that she'd worn a long sleeved shirt and jacket.

"You could've asked without the passive aggressive sarcasm," Clarke bit out and then chewed on her lip, crouching on the grassy bank. She let out a short breath. "It's blood."

Murphy looked to the black backpack with a "what the fuck" sort of stare and then to her.

Before he could ask, she jumped in with an explanation. "They want to be able to come outside. The only way they can heal themselves after radiation exposure is—"

"I'm not a complete idiot, I know about that. I just would've expected there to be. . . more. You said that there were hundreds of people in there before. How does a few liters of blood make a difference after they're used to a person for a person."

Clarke pursed her lips, shoving the cork in the canteen. "It's nowhere near what they're used to, but it's all we can give them." Back when they were negotiating a peace treaty with the Mountain Men, they'd agreed to supply them with radiation-resistant blood as long as their scientists stop experimenting on the grounders.

"No offense, but how do you know they're not screwing us over and just testing anyway?"

Clarke shook her head. "We're they're only chance of survival. They violate the treaty, they're stuck underground until the radiation starts to leak through the cracks and they all die."

Murphy shrugged and hoisted the backpack over his shoulder with a grunt before she could get to it. "I've been there, Clarke. People on the brink of death don't just stand by and let other people make their decisions for them."

Clarke swallowed and watched Murphy as he headed back towards the trail, not sure if she was more angry with herself for not looking at it that way, or Murphy for being right.

* * *

><p>The warm afternoon sun hit Octavia through the open window of the cabin as she lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Lincoln was standing in front of the small mirror on the wall, lathering soap onto the stubble that had grown on his two day trip to his village to attend the wedding of one of his friends, a celebration that Octavia wouldn't have been able to join in anyway, so she'd just stayed home.<p>

He'd only been back in camp for a total of five minutes before she'd run him down and tackled him, dragging him off to their cabin because two days was a long time and lately she'd been feeling very _needy_ (a fact that she'd tell Clarke later when her brother wasn't hanging around).

"What's the news since I've been gone?" Lincoln asked, and Octavia glanced to her husband to blatantly admire his bare back and the dip of his hips where his loose pants hung low.

"Not much," she replied. "Bellamy's still an ass. I'm still famous. Abby still wants to lock me up." She folded her fingers over the swell of her stomach. Abby had always been the protective sort, and this was no different. "Locking her up" was a bit of an exaggeration (okay it was a lot of an exaggeration) but she was getting tired of the doctor urging her not to do _anything_ fun.

He chuckled and the blade rasped over his cheek. "I meant with you."

"Oh," Octavia said simply in surprise. She smiled and ran a hand over her stomach. "Clarke says she can move around even though I can't feel it." That had made it seem all the more real, the fact that her (she thought and secretly hoped) baby girl would be moving already.

"Her?" Lincoln questioned, tilting his chin up to get his jawline.

"It's a girl," Octavia said, patting her stomach. "I can feel it."

She could hear the smile in his voice. "I'm not sure I can handle two of you."

Octavia shook her head, laughing. "What, just think, if it's a girl, you can teach her to fight. She'll be the most badass little girl on the ground."

Lincoln laughed outright at that, something he didn't do very often, which sent Octavia's stomach a little twisty in happiness. "And then she wouldn't need you to protect her."

"I'll still protect her," Lincoln said, the smile lingering but a note of severity entering his voice. "Even though I know you can take care of yourself, that doesn't mean I don't worry. It'll be the same with her."

Octavia smiled now that he was on board with it possibly being a girl. She'd always imagined Lincoln with a bunch of boys, taking them hunting, teaching them how to use a knife, wrestling with them. "All the boys will be too afraid to ask her out though," Octavia said with a sigh.

Lincoln laughed. "That'll be all on you, O. Grown men are afraid of you."

"You're not afraid of me," she teased.

"That's because I'm not afraid of a woman who can beat me in a fight," he said with a shrug and Octavia bit her lip. Lincoln was different from the people that she'd met on the Ark, he wasn't afraid to say exactly what he meant; he didn't hide behind his words. Sometimes she forgot and then he'd go and say something like that and she remembered why she'd loved him in the first place.

"Did you notice anything else different about me?" she asked suddenly, propping herself up on her elbows to look at him. The blanket was pooled around her waist and she hadn't covered anything else up since their desperate "I haven't seen you in two days" reunion sex, leaving the rest of her exposed.

Lincoln finished and patted his face dry with the cloth sitting on the side table, turning to look at her. She squirmed a little under his blatant gaze that ran down her exposed flesh, lingering on her breasts that had been sore and aching for the past few days but undeniably larger.

A slow, knowing smile spread on his lips. "I think I might be able to guess." Everything about the way he treated her had always been adoring in an effort to make her happy in the way that she made him happy. His attention warmed her.

She didn't have to ask if he was up for another round because as soon as she smirked, biting her lip, he was sliding over her, pressing her hands above her head. "It's not just that," he murmured against her throat with a gentle hand cupping her breast. "You're so beautiful."

For all the irritability that left as quickly as it came, the way she was already struggling to fit into her clothes, and the soreness in her breasts, sometimes she praised the hormones flooding through her body.

She smiled into her husband's shoulder, wrapping her legs around his hips. "I'm glad you're back," she whispered.

"Me too, O." He pushed the blankets down. "Me too."

* * *

><p>"These people are fucked up," Murphy said as soon as they were both sitting in the containment room, washed and in fresh clothes Mount Weather had provided (no radiation soaked items allowed inside) to wait out the three hour de-contamination period until they could see President Wallace.<p>

Clarke glared at him and just pointed to the security camera above the door. There were probably mics hidden somewhere too. For God's sake, did he have any sense of diplomacy at all?

He glanced up and shrugged, surveying the room with his hands on his hips. Without his filthy hair and even dirtier jacket, he could almost pass as approachable.

The Mountain Men had developed one of the hospital rooms into a waiting area for these times when executives from Camp Jaha had to visit, but its dangerously decadent furnishings set Clarke on edge more than comforted her. _It's all a lie_, she reminded herself as she sat down on the plump sofa with the tiny curved wooden feet. _All they want is out._

"I can see why you'd want to get out of this place," Murphy said, sauntering across the plush, faded rug to the mahogany bookcase stacked with worn volumes whose spines were withered with cracks. He nodded towards the impressionistic painting on the wall. "Too fancy for my tastes."

"That's because you don't _have_ taste," Clarke snorted before she could stop herself and Murphy looked over his shoulder to smirk at her.

"How unkind of you."

She picked at the hem of the soft blue cotton shirt they'd given her. "I think you can handle it."

Clarke wasn't sure when she and Murphy had become friends. All she knew was that when they'd first arrived in Camp Jaha, she'd blamed him for so many things, most of which had admittedly been in his power to stop, other's not so much. She'd hated him even more when he'd implied that it was her fault Finn had massacred those eighteen villagers and then her hate had turned into angry frustrated loathing when she'd believed him.

And after everything he'd done (trying to hang Bellamy, costing Raven half a leg, bringing the grounder army to the dropship), echoed words had come back to her in a completely infuriating way: "Someone doesn't need to deserve your forgiveness for you to give it to them."

It hadn't happen just like that (hell, she was still in the process of it four years later) but gradually, word by word and action by action, she'd grown to tolerate—and possibly even like—her time with Murphy. Not that she'd ever let him know that, of course.

"So what, we just have to sit here for three hours?" Murphy said, bracing his hands on the back of the couch, sounding like the Mountain Men had just asked him to eat a bucket of worms instead of literally doing absolutely nothing.

"Yeah." She took a long breath. "Sorry if you have a problem with it, but that's the way it is. Just sit down and be quiet."

She'd made the trip with her mother on occasions past, and each time they hadn't touched the entertainment provided for them. The books stayed on their shelves, the old newspapers still stacked under the side table. Once there had even been a record player, but they'd just stopped the music and sat in silence, and the next time they'd come, it had been gone.

Murphy circled the room a few times but didn't touch any of the furnishings. He paused to pick at a bit of peeling yellow paint on the wall and finally dropped onto the opposite end of the couch. Something in Clarke eased a little bit now that he wasn't pacing, and he rested his chin in his hand.

Clarke sunk a little into the cushions and folded her arms. The room was quiet and her thoughts slipped to Bellamy. She tried not to think about him, she really did, but after she and Murphy's conversation on the way there, it was a little inevitable. It was _her_ life, she was allowed to think about her future. Besides, what else was she supposed to do for three hours?

But in the silence, around the tapping of Murphy's fingers against the upholstery, Clarke heard a faint noise and sat up straighter.

"You hear that?"

Murphy turned to her lazily. "Sorry I was too busy trying to be quiet."

"Shut up, Murphy, I'm serious." She listened again, all thoughts of her relationship troubles gone from her mind. Had that been a _scream_?

She moved towards the door, motioning for Murphy to follow her and paused with her hand on the doorknob when it came again: definitely a scream, muffled through the walls.

"Oh, I guess you weren't kidding."

She peered out the round window, standing on her tip-toes. The hallway was empty, nothing but paintings and statues between the white doors.

"Please tell me we're going to go investigate instead of sitting here bored out of our minds," Murphy said as she hesitated with her hand on the doorknob.

Screams from in Mount Weather? Even if were just a regular patient. . . Clarke didn't trust Dr. Tsing, she hadn't from the very start and she wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there was more trouble underfoot. Better to be safe than sorry.

"Keep quiet," she said and cracked the door, listening for any sounds of approaching people but heard nothing.

Murphy followed her out. "We haven't even been here five fucking minutes," he muttered. "They need to get their shit together."

If President Wallace had violated the treaty, they'd have to pull back, cut off trade, and frankly that was something they couldn't afford, not when they were still working their way through the massive tech repairs, to say nothing of _keeping everyone alive_. And all the civilians in Mount Weather. . . they'd die before they got to see the sun.

Another faint scream came and Clarke realized it wasn't a scream of terror, but of pain. "This way," she whispered, and motioned for Murphy to follow her.

"Right behind you," he said and they moved down the hallway, peering into the darkened windows of the hospital rooms, all empty. "We should find some weapons."

Clarke nodded, pushing into an empty room, remembering her first escape from Mount Weather. Broken glass would do the trick, but she'd prefer something else.

The hospital room just had a bed with crisp white sheets and a blanket folded at the foot. An IV stand hovered in the corner, and next to the bed squatted a wooden side-table.

"Here," Murphy said and strode to the table, kicking it on its side and prying at a leg until it snapped off in splinters.

Much sturdier than an IV rack.

He pried off another leg for himself and they moved back down the hall until they came to a four-way split.

There hadn't been a scream in a while but Clarke didn't want to wait for another. "We shouldn't split up. That always ends badly. This way first."

She moved towards the right branch, her heart rate spiking.

The hallway ended in empty rooms though, these without windows into them and Clarke was just about to turn around when Murphy grabbed her arm, pointing to the crack under the bottom of the very last door at the end of the hall.

It was so faint she almost couldn't see it in the lights of the hallway, but then a shadow moved and a faint voice came through the heavy door: Dr. Tsing.

"That's it, almost."

Clarke put a finger to her lips and they crept towards the door. "Just knock them out," she murmured with her hand on the doorknob, slowly turning it. "Need to keep this clean as possible."

She took a deep breath and Murphy gave a quick nod, face all hard lines and determination.

She threw open the door and stopped dead in her tracks.

**Sorrynotsorry :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**This took a little longer than I anticipated because of a fluffy daddy!Bellamy drabble**** that distracted me from this sort of darker story. I tried to tone down the intensity of this chapter with John Murphy being John Murphy and some other sort of fluffy bits. (Though parts could be slightly squicky for any sensitive readers)**

"What the fuck—Jesus fucking Christ, what the _hell_—" Murphy cursed at the sight of the woman sitting on the bed with her feet propped up in weird metal things. But the worst part was that he could see exactly the place that he wanted to avoid. She was giving _birth_. There was no way he'd ever be able to un-see that.

Everything was happening all at once, Clarke was frozen in place, the middle aged doctor jolting up in pure shock, yelling for them to get out, and all the while the woman that was having the thing was screaming for different reasons that made Murphy respect women just a little bit more.

Clarke whirled around and tugged him out of the room, a firm hand on his arm. She shut the door behind him while he was still muttering curses, pacing in the hallway. Fucking _hell_, of all the things he didn't want to see ever again in his entire life, a woman giving birth was now at the top of his list.

"I think I'm going to puke," he groaned, the horrifying _bloody_ image etched into his eyelids.

"Grow up," Clarke muttered, looking stricken, running her hands through her hair. "It's a natural process."

"Not one I ever want to see again," he snorted. "Miracle of life, my ass."

Clarke turned on him. "Do you even know what this means?"

Murphy paused. "Yeah there's another kid who'll never leave this fucking hell of a place, whoop de doo. At least there's nothing _wrong_ like you wanted there to be." He frowned and added. "At least not with her. I don't think I'll ever to burn the sight of that out of my mind, _damn_ it. . ."

Clarke's lips pressed into a firm line and she gripped the wooden table leg she was still carrying with both hands. "There's something else going on, there has to be."

Murphy glanced back to the door when a baby's wail pierced through the air. "Clarke, it's just a baby. Also, are we not going to, you know, get out of here? I don't really want to be around when that doctor decides to come after—"

"_That doctor_ was the brains behind all the other experiments on the grounders and their own civilians." There was a sharp edge to Clarke's voice and Murphy's memory flashed to when Clarke had spoken to _him_ in that tone of voice.

"If we want to go, we should leave sooner than later." He gestured down the hallway, giving her the underlying choice: if they left they'd be choosing to believe that Crazy Doctor was innocent, if they stayed to confront her, they'd assume that she was up to something.

Every instinct was telling him to _leave_, because that woman had looked terrifying and if there was anything he'd learned in the last four years, it was that women could do a whole lot more damage than men.

Clarke just set her stance firm. "I'm going to talk to her."

"Damn it, Clarke. Not everything has to be fucked up. Just because the crazy bitch did some fucked up shit in the past doesn't mean she's still doing it now. Come _on_."

Clarke met his eyes for a moment and he saw the hesitation in them. Because she'd caught onto the double meaning to his words. "I can't do that."

He rolled his eyes, muttering curses that she ignored.

While they waited, the baby still crying on and on and on, Murphy realized that he _wanted_ there to be nothing wrong, not because he was a good person or some crap like that, but because it would mean that there would still be a chance for him to redeem himself. It would mean that someone who'd done the desperate things that he'd committed to picture-perfect memory would still have a chance at changing.

Still Clarke didn't make any move to knock or enter the room.

"She'll come out herself," Clarke said as if reading his mind.

"Then what's she waiting on?" he groused.

"Probably for the afterbirth."

"What's—" he waved his hands. "Actually never mind, I don't want to know."

She gave him a look that seemed to say "pathetic" but he didn't care as long as it distracted him from his previous thoughts. She continued on despite his protests. "It's just the placenta. It's what the baby—"

Murphy winced. This whole day was devolving into a fucking nightmare and the very last thing he wanted to do was listen to Clarke talking about giving birth.

"You're absolutely ridiculous," Clarke said, shaking her head. "One day you're going to have a kid and your wife or girlfriend or whoever is going to make you be there, in the room with her, and you're going to pass out because you can't handle the _facts of life_."

Murphy huffed out a short breath. Of all the things to get upset about, the princess was miffed at his lack of stomach for seeing a fucking baby come out of a place that he never, ever wanted to go near again. "That's assuming I'm stupid enough to knock her up in the first place." The old frustration and bitterness came flooding back, the self-loathing that crept up at night when he woke up in cold sweats from nightmares of Grounder prisons and a noose around his neck. "No one wants a murdering psychopath for the father of their kid."

Clarke paused then, and she looked like she was going to say something out of pity but the door opened and that doctor came rushing out.

"What the _hell_ do you two think you're doing?! The radiation isn't out of your systems yet. You're endangering the lives of both the mother and the child by being here! You shouldn't be in this section at all!"

Murphy's eyebrows rose at the way the dark-haired woman strode straight past him to face Clarke. Well, well, well, maybe the princess wasn't quite done facing her enemies.

"Apparently I was wrong to think you couldn't sink any lower," Clarke spat. "Running tests on pregnant women now, are you?"

The woman twice Clarke's age shook her head, stepping closer. "You have no idea what you're saying. You've just violated the privacy of a civilian woman and her daughter."

Clarke's brow furrowed and her eyes were hard and cold. Murphy was glad he wasn't in the doctor's place. On the other side of that stare was one place he was glad he hadn't been in a good long while. "Where's the father? Where's the nurses. Where's _anyone else_ who can convince me otherwise. You don't just deliver a baby single handedly."

Murphy met Clarke's eyes over the doctor's shoulder and the glance to the door was so quick that it took him a second to register what she'd been trying to convey.

Under other circumstances, Murphy wouldn't risk anything just so Clarke could come home the hero again, but Bitchy Doctor was being so defensive that he had to wonder if something really was going on. And if there was even a chance of that. . . there was a kid involved and he didn't want to chance it.

Murphy eased back to the door and waited till the fucked up lady was yelling again before he slipped inside, gripping the chair leg.

The woman lying on the bed with the small—Murphy hadn't realized how _small_ babies were—bundle against her chest looked up and jolted, clutching her kid tighter.

"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you," he snapped and immediately berated himself. _Great fucking job, now you're terrifying her with your usual charming self_. Clarke should've been the one in here dealing with a scared woman while he was out there arguing.

"What do you want?" she asked warily and it was only then that it registered to Murphy just how young she was, probably no older than him. Her blond hair was sticking to her forehead and neck and there was a blotchy flush in her cheeks.

"Is the Bitchy Doctor hurting you?"

She shirked away at his tone and he mumbled a curse. Damn his impatience.

"No," she responded slowly. "She's been very kind to me."

He grunted and looked around the mostly empty hospital room but it was just like all the others. He could see her staring at the splintered table leg in his hand while he snatched up a file resting on a tray of tools he didn't want to know the uses for. "We're gonna make a deal, okay?"

Clarke's yells were coming through the door now and the girl's eyes flashed with fear. "O-okay."

Murphy hated doing this, he really did, but they needed a break here if there really was something going on. "I'm going to take this," he shook the yellow file. "And you're not going to yell or scream or do anything _stupid_ or I'll come back and make sure you _understand_ the consequences of going back on your word."

It wasn't hard to do, to act like the fuck-up he knew he was, but that didn't mean he wanted to give into it. He didn't savor other's pain; he was just willing to let them suffer for him to get by.

The girl's eyes were wide and she nodded with a quick breath.

Murphy slipped the file into his jacket and paused, wanting to say some shit like "sorry" but that'd ruin the threat so he just slid back out into the hallway where the Bitch Doc and Clarke were still at it.

As soon as the door was shut, Clarke eased up. "Why don't you just take us to President Wallace, then."

Bitch Doctor looked Clarke up and down and stepped back, her black heels clicking on the floor. Why was she so fancy dressed anyway? It wasn't like there was a reason to wear nice things. Just another reason not to trust her.

Bitch glanced back to him and sneered. "Your people have crossed the line and we won't tolerate it anymore. You'll have to wait in decontamination for the rest of your time." She pulled a small pager out of the pocket of her white coat. "I need two guards on hall C of the med level."

A static-y response came a few moments later and Murphy just crossed his arms, the file crinkling against his chest.

Bitch Doctor eyed the both of them without even trying to hide her anger, staring at Murphy as he moved past her to take his stance next to Clarke.

No one said anything and Murphy was about ready just to knock her out himself when two guards in the radiation-resistant suits appeared around the corner, heading for them with a pair of tranquilizer guns.

"Please escort these two to the decontamination waiting room," Bitch Doctor said stiffly.

The guard closest to Murphy reached for his arm, but he jerked away. "Hands off, we're not resisting."

Clarke marched forward but the guard reached for the table leg she was still clutching.

"We'll take those."

Murphy shoved the wooden bludgeon into his guard's chest and started forwards. "It's like you don't trust us at all."

Clarke just dropped hers on the floor and matched his pace down the hall, their guards rushing to catch up.

* * *

><p>Bellamy knocked on the door of Octavia and Lincoln's cabin. "Hey, O, you in there?" he called in and heard faint rustling. The door swung inwards to Lincoln standing in the threshold, shirtless and squinting into the sunlight.<p>

"Bellamy, what can I do for you?"

He peered around his brother-in-law into the dark house, the only light coming from the open door and the cracks of the setting sunlight slipping in the cracks between the drawn shutters. "Is O here?"

Lincoln gestured vaguely to the bed where Bellamy could make out a lump under the blankets. "She's been asleep all afternoon."

Bellamy glanced to Lincoln. "And you too?" He chuckled, a faint weight lifting off of his shoulders. O was a sucker for naps, she always had been, so it was good to see her relaxed, especially with all the bounding around camp as of late. "Typical. I was just looking to talk with her."

Bellamy tried to ignore the fact that Lincoln was a good two or three inches taller than him and that he'd just been sleeping with his sister. He'd had four years to get used to not being the only man watching out for Octavia and he was still fighting back the urge to protect his sister from everything he could.

"Is it anything I can help you with?" Lincoln asked after a slightly awkward pause.

Bellamy swatted away a stray moth already beginning to come out. "Don't worry about it. I'll just find her later."

He started to turn away but Lincoln stepped out and shut the door. "It's about Clarke, isn't it?" Bellamy hesitated but Lincoln continued, "Sorry if I'm overstepping my bounds, it's just that I know you and your sister are very close and you always go to her with that sort of thing—"

"No it's. . . it's fine." Bellamy said, turning back around to face his brother-in-law. Lincoln wasn't Octavia and he really didn't seem like the kind of guy that would want to have a heart to heart, but he obviously wasn't completely oblivious about relationships, not since he and O were together. "How'd you know, though?"

Lincoln chuckled, offering Bellamy one of the two overturned crates in front of the cabin, and they sat down. "You and I got lucky enough to end up with two powerful women. I think I have an idea of what you're going through." He gave him a knowing look.

Bellamy braced his forearms on his knees and nodded. "That's the biggest understatement I've heard in a while." He looked out over the edge of camp; the sky was just beginning to darken with the sunset, but the warmth of the day lingered as evening set in. Even then, he was surprised Lincoln hadn't put on a shirt.

Lincoln stretched out his legs in front of him, leaning his bare back against the cabin and it was then that Bellamy realized he'd never sat down one on one with his brother-in-law; there'd always been other people around, either in the other room or just a few feet away in a different conversation.

"Do you mind if I take a guess at what's going on?"

"Sure." Bellamy hardly thought he'd pick up on what was really happening, but it was worth a shot. Then he might not have to admit it outright.

Lincoln cleared his throat. "Well, you and Clarke have been. . . the same thing for a while. Now Octavia and I are married and about to parents and you and Clarke are still. . . you and Clarke. It's been what—"

"Two and a half years," Bellamy filled in quickly, a little surprised at himself. He remembered the day that Clarke had marched up to him at dinner one night, asking if they were going to try out "this relationship thing" or not. In the months before, it had admittedly gotten a little weird—she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder after a long night of talking about something he didn't even remember, she'd caught him bathing in the river and he'd been almost positive that she'd seen all of his junk before he'd gotten low enough in the water (later she'd admitted that she'd seen it all and had stared at his ass for the entire following week), to say nothing of the drunken kiss they'd pretended hadn't happened—and the start of their "official" relationship had been a surprising relief, a weight off of his shoulders that he hadn't realized existed.

Lincoln looked to Bellamy, an expectant look on his face, but it took a moment for the pieces to click together in his mind. "Yesterday O made a joke about Clarke and I getting married and. . . having kids." The words seemed odd coming out of his mouth. He'd never done much imagining for his future. There'd only been two things on his mind: numbing himself to the pain of his mother's death, and keeping O safe because he wouldn't fail her like he did his mother. Around that, there'd been no time for thinking about the future because he really hadn't looked forward to it.

Lincoln nodded slowly. "So, it's a matter of if you want that, or not, and if you don't, you'd better make sure she knows it or you're in trouble."

The underlying question was as simple as anything and Bellamy wasn't sure how to respond at first. Yes or no? But then he wondered how he could have ever doubted himself. It was as plain as day. "I do want that." He nodded, taking a slow breath.

Lincoln gave him a firm rap on the back, squeezing his shoulder. "I've faced hundreds of warriors in battle, been strung up in _your_ dropship, and come back from being a Reaper. Admitting to myself what you just did was the most terrifying thing I've ever faced."

Bellamy couldn't resist grinning at that, shaking his head. "I can see why." Why was he so calm? Shouldn't he be more worried, terrified even? There was no way that it was that simple.

The door to the cabin creaked open and Octavia poked her head out, her hair a tangled halo around her head. She smiled. "Hey, Bell, what're you guys up to?"

"He's going to ask Clarke to marry him," Lincoln said before Bellamy could even think about how he'd break the news to Octavia.

Her eyes widened and she suddenly looked like a kid in a candy story, grinning like mad. "Really?! Wait, lemme put on some pants so I can come out."

Lincoln laughed and after she'd ducked back into the cabin, Bellamy opened his arms, palms up. "What'd you tell her that for? Now I'll never hear the end of it."

Lincoln just shrugged, smirking.

Then O burst out of the house, still zipping up her loose pants, a baggy shirt over small frame. She squealed and pulled Bellamy into a hug, his head pushed into her chest as she rocked him back and forth. "It's about damn time." She was laughing while Bellamy looked to Lincoln for help, but the ass was just laughing.

"How are you gonna ask her?" She released him and Lincoln reached out, pulling her onto his lap, her arm over his shoulders.

Bellamy shrugged. Did they really have to sit like that when he was around? "I haven't gotten that far yet," he said with a slight laugh. Three minutes ago he'd been wondering if Clarke had hated him and now he was going to propose. The prospect of that excited him more than he'd ever thought it would.

"Give the man a break," Lincoln said, nudging Octavia. "He's only just figured out he wanted to marry her."

"So _that's_ what you were talking about," O said with a sly smile.

Bellamy teasingly bumped her shin facing him. "Yeah."

"But you already knew you wanted to marry her."

"When did I ever tell you that?" he scoffed, sure that he'd never (explicitly) said any such thing.

Octavia's slender eyebrows rose. "Last Unity Day you were drunk out of your mind and you told Miller and I that you were going to marry Clarke one day, and here we are, perfectly sober, with you planning on doing just that."

"Well I don't remember that at all," he said with mock severity even though a vague memory was coming floating back to him through a moonshine-induced fog.

"Whatever you say, Bell. But you have to let me help you plan how to ask her."

Bellamy shrugged. "I'm just going to. . . you know, ask her."

Octavia groaned. "When we were little, you didn't tell me all those fairy tales for nothing. You can't just _ask_ her. Fuck, you're hopeless."

Bellamy was no expert on what women wanted (at least, outside of the bedroom, the cocky voice in his head smirked) but he was pretty sure that Clarke was a woman of simple tastes when it came to things like this. He couldn't see her enjoying anything too extravagant like Octavia's tastes called for.

He glanced to Lincoln, who gave him a sympathetic smile. They were both in for a long night.

* * *

><p>Clarke looked down at the file encased in a book from the shelf so that the security camera wouldn't see what she was reading, running down the information on the page over and over again, willing herself to find just one thing out of order. But it was all normal: General information about the woman, blood tests, vital signs, notes about her general health over the course of her pregnancy, intake of vitamins and supplements.<p>

Murphy was next to her on the couch, sitting in determined silence as he looked over the other half of the file. The guards had locked them in the waiting room and were stand outside the door, presumably ready to escort them to President Wallace as soon as their three hours were up.

There _had_ to be something wrong. Dr. Tsing had been too defensive, too eager to prove that nothing was wrong without offering any evidence. Nothing added up.

"See anything interesting?" Clarke asked with a frustrated huff of breath. "I've got nothing."

Murphy shifted through the papers again with a shake of his head. "All this stuff about. . . antepartum," he struggled through the word, "tests? And spaces for things called neonatal tests? I don't know. Is that interesting?"

Clarke frowned. "What kind of antepartum tests?" Her pages had contained all the necessary tests obstetricians usually carried out.

Murphy just handed her the file open to the right page with the cover book beneath. "Just whatever it says there. Bunch of science-y shit I don't understand."

She traded with him for the file she was holding and glanced over the page where "tests" were sorted by week. Different chemicals and hormones listed in charts, some in graphs next to fetal development. What the hell? An obstetrician wouldn't have to observe an average pregnancy in half as much depth as Dr. Tsing had been doing.

She flipped back to the first page of Murphy's half, titled "First Trimester" and read the initial entry: "Artificial insemination successful despite paternal complications." She paused. What? Mount Weather was under strict population laws just like the Ark had been. Why would they go the extra mile to make sure that a single woman gave birth to a baby? And "paternal complications" on top of the outright excessive observations during her pregnancy?

"So is it something important or not?" Murphy asked after a moment.

Clarke's brow furrowed. "I think we might have a hit, but we need more information."

"They're not just going to let us walk in the fucking door again," Murphy scoffed and Clarke threw him a glare.

"No shit."

But Murphy was right. How were they supposed to find out any more when Mount Weather was now on their guard? For not the first time in her life, Clarke wasn't sure what to do.

* * *

><p>"Miss Griffin, Mr. Murphy," President Wallace said, turning from the painting he was busy on, another landscape: a rich green forest with golden light flickering through the pine trees.<p>

Clarke kept her distance, not returning his smile. She was through putting up with his friendly bullshit.

"Murphy," Murphy corrected in a low voice. "I don't need the fucking "Mr." Do I look like I deserve that to you?" Under other circumstances, Clarke would've been angry at his rudeness but at the minute, there were more important things on her plate.

Wallace's lips thinned but he just said, "_Murphy_," and looked from one other. "When will you learn, Miss Griffin, that we are here to help you? When will you learn to _trust_ us?" He sounded betrayed but Clarke could see through the act.

"I haven't seen anything that's earned my trust yet. When that day comes, I'll be sure to let you know," she said simply, and then tossed the file on the corner of his desk. "But I don't think that'll be a while considering _this_."

Wallace frowned and gingerly picked up the yellowing paper, opening the envelope and pushing his glasses up his nose. He'd aged quickly over the past four years and there was an ever-sallow bagginess to his skin, as if he was melting away in the dank darkness of Mount Weather. Clarke didn't even feel bad for him.

He removed his glasses and cocked his head to Clarke. "You have the audacity to endanger my people's lives, the life of a _child_, you disrespect my staff," his voice had begun quiet but now it was on the rise, completely uncharacteristic of him, and Clarke braced herself for his anger. "You violate this patient's privacy and then pretend that _we_ are the ones in the wrong?! I don't know what you were thinking, but I sincerely _hope_ that you don't think you're getting _any_ of the supplies you asked for."

Murphy stepped forwards and Clarke thought he might attack the president but he just got close enough to sneer at him. "You're the ones who fucked up. We just happened to notice. You owe us those supplies."

"Next time you should think about the rest of your people before you break the treaty," Wallace said and Clarke cut in, suddenly furious.

"You're testing on _pregnant_ women so you can build radiation immunity. _You're_ the ones violating the treaty, not us. This is all on you and your doctor."

"Dr. Tsing isn't doing anything of the sort and I'm sorry if you can't move away from the past. It's _over_ Clarke. She's done with that."

Clarke was more upset with Wallace for trusting the bitch than with him for refusing to listen to her.

Murphy scoffed. "It's not _over_ until you're either outside or dead, and she knows that. If you don't recognize that, you're just an idiot."

Clarke put a hand on his shoulder and he glanced to her, backing off. She took a slow breath, lowering her voice. "You can't refuse to believe something that's right under your nose or you have no place leading your people."

Wallace's jaw hardened, eyes cold. "You have no right to speak to me like this when we've done nothing but compromise to your demands. Get out of my office," he said quietly and pushed the intercom button on his desk. "I need two guards please."

Was he really—?

"Ask her what she's doing," Clarke said quickly, while she still had the chance. "Ask Dr. Tsing about the father of the baby. Read that file and tell me to my face that she's not testing behind your back." The door opened and two guards came in.

President Wallace was silent but Clarke saw suspicion flicker in his eyes. "Please escort Miss Griffin and _Mr_. Murphy to the exit and alert the whole guard that neither of them should ever be allowed in Mount Weather again."

Clarke was so shocked that the words she'd been planning died on her lips. She saw the two guards glance to each other in uncertainty but one just gave a "yes, sir," and they both stepped forwards.

"Ask her," Clarke insisted as one of them took her arm. "Ask Dr. Tsing what she's doing and then maybe _you_ should reevaluate who you can trust. Because of everyone in Mount Weather, only one of us has ever gone behind your back before and it sure as hell wasn't me."

The guard tugged she and Murphy out of the room.

The door slammed shut behind them and Clarke knew she'd gotten through to him. She had to believe that. Because at this point, that was their saving grace. She could only hope that he'd see the truth. But what were the chances of that?

**This is a lot to handle in one chapter... Hope the pacing is all right...**

**On a completely different note, I'm starting classes next Monday, so I'll try to get a chapter out before then and then go on a weekly update schedule! As always, thanks for reading and all of the great feedback I get from you guys!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Shorter chapter this week, sorry guys. I'm planning on updating on Sundays while class is in session, so this will be the first day of that! I was intending this chapter to lighten up, but it sort of took a turn away from that... Prepare for Murphy feels and Bellarke angst. These guys have been through so much and sometimes it gets to them.**

Murphy let out a groan as Raven rolled off of him, tugging the threadbare blanket up over her chest in the darkness of her tent. "Shit, you weren't kidding were you?" she murmured, glancing over at him with raised eyebrows.

Murphy ran a hand down his face and pushed his damp hair off his forehead. Not three minutes after he and Clarke had walked through the gate and she'd gone to deal with the council, he'd hunted down the one person who could make him forget himself. Therapeutic sex wasn't exactly the worst thing in the world by any means. "Well what do you want me to say?"

He'd found her in her in mecha station, fiddling over some electric thingy he didn't care about, looking hot as hell hunched over the table and barely glancing up when he'd walked in. She'd groaned when he pulled her away from her work with a "need to let off some steam," and walked in silence to her tent.

Raven flicked her dark ponytail over her shoulder. "Now I'm gonna have to completely start over rewiring that system, why'd you even get back so early?"

Murphy grunted, glancing across her bare collarbone. "I thought the number one rule of this _arrangement_ was to not ask questions."

Raven turned on her pallet and held the covers to her chest as she peered into the darkness, presumably looking for her clothes. "That question isn't personal, so get over yourself," she muttered followed by a, "damn it, where's my bra?"

Murphy glanced around and saw the garment rumpled in with the blankets. While her back was turned, he shoved it farther under the sheets with his leg. "There's some weird shit going on, so we had to come back to talk to the council."

His eyes followed the curve of her back down to the scar at the base of her spine. Apparently mutual anger and hatred went a long way towards sexual tension. Just because he thought she was a bitch didn't mean she was a bitch he wouldn't fuck.

"What kind of weird shit?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at him. "Also, if you don't give me the rest of my clothes in three seconds, I'm going to throw you to the grounders and say you killed their people."

Her insults had since ceased their sting. "You do that and I'll make sure your other leg doesn't work either," he snapped back but didn't move. "Find your damn clothes yourself."

Raven's lips thinned and she reached forward, jerking the sheet off of his body. "You're such a child."

"I sincerely hope that a child wouldn't have just done all the things I just did to you," he smirked as she yanked her bra out from under his leg and swatted him in the stomach with it.

"Now what the hell happened in Mount Weather?" she asked as she turned away from him and let the sheet drop when she pulled the bra over her head.

He didn't pull the blanket she'd yanked off of him back up, just folded his hands behind his head and stared up at the thin ceiling of the tent. "Clarke thinks they're still pulling their old shit with the experiments."

Raven paused, her pants halfway up her legs. "Why didn't you say that in the first place?"

"Clarke's with the council now, it's not like you could've done anything."

"That doesn't mean you don't _tell_ me, damn it," she huffed and jerked up the zipper of her pants.

Murphy's gut twisted in anger. He'd just wanted a good fuck to escape from the tension that never left his mind, why had that been too much to ask for? "That only would've gotten you angry and then you wouldn't have wanted to do anything."

Raven's hands were on her hips. "You're damn right I wouldn't have wanted to do anything. Well you'd better fucking tell me now. What kinds of tests? I thought they were done with all that bone marrow crap."

"Now they're moving on to women and children." He didn't particularly want to go into any more details than that.

He couldn't blame the look of blatant disgust that crossed her face as she cased her tugging on the straps of her brace. "What the hell?"

"It got Clarke and I banned from Mount Weather, discovering whatever the fuck they're doing. She and her mom are going to try and figure out what it is."

On the way back, he'd offered to help in any way he could. It was jumping the gun, yeah, but it couldn't hurt if Clarke was right—and there was no doubt in his mind that she was. Besides, Mount Weather was a fucked up place and if he couldn't into the minds of desperate people willing to go to drastic measures to save their own skins, then who could?

* * *

><p><em>As soon as she gets back<em>, Bellamy had told himself after finally escaping Octavia that night. None of the fancy nonsense that his sister had insisted on. A straightforward approach, nothing too complicated, fitting for both he and Clarke. Besides, he wasn't even sure he could manage anything more than 'simple;' everything Octavia had suggested had seemed way out of his comfort zone, and something he'd just screw up.

He'd been sitting in their cabin, alone with a Trigedasleng book about the history on the ground after the nuclear wars. Interesting but a mindful to work through since his training in the grounder's language had been limited to Lincoln's infrequent lessons.

That was when he'd heard the guard's commotion, the squeaking groan of the gates opening, and he'd gladly accepted the distraction, tossing the book onto the bed and going to see who was getting into camp at that hour of the night.

And _that_ was why he found himself shuffling out of the council room at two in the morning, Clarke seething with anger at his side. Three hours of debate over what to do and no headway except that Abby and Kane would go to Mount Weather in the morning to talk further with Wallace.

"That was a huge waste of time," Clarke muttered as they stepped out of the Ark, heading for their cabin.

Bellamy still wasn't sure if he was relieved to see Clarke back sooner than planned or frustrated that the situations with Mount Weather and sunk back to their original state. Regardless, the proposal was far from his mind. There were more important things to worry about now.

"What do you want to do about it?" he asked, glancing down at Clarke's frown.

She chewed on her lip. "We've got to get back in there, with or without me, and not just to talk. They're not going to say anything tomorrow to my mom."

He wet his lips, knowing she was going to argue with him, but he had to say it anyway. "Who says we have to do anything." Getting into another war meant death, _deaths_.

Sure enough, Clarke's eyes shot up to him. "I'm not just going to stand by and watch that happen and neither are you. We didn't come to the ground to let each other die."

"Yeah well we didn't come to the ground to use each other as lab rats either."

Clarke swallowed and for the first time that evening, he saw how nervous she was, recognized the terse set of her shoulders and the wrinkle in her brow for what they were. "I'm not letting more people die because of me," she said quietly.

Bellamy's stomach clenched and he took her hand, possibly more for his sake than hers. He could feel the dark thoughts creeping back to him, the faces of those whose blood was on his hands. "Fair enough. I'll go with your mom tomorrow to sort things out with Wallace. And. . ." he wasn't sure how to brooch the topic that he knew was haunting her, just as his own ghosts haunted him.

The wound Finn had left in her had closed up, but was still raw and painful at times, he knew. Most days she was fine, but once that time of year would roll around, she'd retreat into herself until that day when everyone knew she was at his grave but no one said anything.

"I'm coming too," she said, determined as they reached the front door of their home.

Bellamy opened the door for her and frowned. "You know you can't."

She marched inside and moved to click on the lantern resting on the otherwise empty table. "There's more than one entrance into Mount Weather. And no one decides what we can and can't do."

Bellamy stiffened, 'whatever the hell we want' echoing in his mind. "You'll just upset Wallace and we can't have that right now. You know that, you're just too stubborn to admit it."

Clarke planted her hands on the table across from him, the lantern casting dark shadows over the planes of her face. "I don't trust anyone else to—"

"You trust me, don't you?" he asked, more a statement than a question. She didn't like giving up the reins, she never had.

She didn't hesitate. "Yeah, but—"

He circled the table, cupping her chin to force her eyes up to his. "Then trust me to handle this." Because he needed something he could handle.

Her eyes wavered and he could feel her jaw relax in the slightest motion. "Okay."

He stared at her for a moment longer, suspicious at how easily she gave in. He would've observed her longer had she not pulled away and started to dig through her small chest of clean clothes.

Bellamy let out a short breath, pushing back the curls on his forehead. Sometimes he'd forget how much they'd been through over the years. Sometimes it felt like a dream—a nightmare—that they'd been through hell and survived. And even fewer were the times that he'd realized that they'd never left.

Clarke was saying something else but he could barely hear her because _shit_, they were all so screwed up. It was all crashing over him, like he was standing under a waterfall with all questions and no answers pounding down on his shoulders. Where was the line to cross between good and bad? There were no lines, all smudged over and undiscernible. Was killing, maiming, and scarring worth the survival? What was the point of trying if the people they'd turn out to be weren't worth the trouble?

Somewhere Clarke's voice was pulling him out of his thoughts—the kind that slipped into his mind at night when he was alone at a guard post, staring out into the forest and thinking about everything he'd done.

"Bellamy! Bell—" her blue eyes were drawn with concern, brow knit.

He shook the thoughts from his mind but they lurked in the corner, waiting to seize him again. "I'm fine—"

Clarke's palms were pressed against his cheeks and he realized his nails were digging into his skin in little pricks of pain. He slowly released his fists to the frantic pounding of his heart. "The fact that you have to say that makes it obvious that you _aren't_ fine."

"What happened to trusting me?" he grunted, pulling away while all he could think about was what they might lose in the next war. There was only so far they could bend until they broke, and more death would certainly break him.

Clarke followed him to the bed where he sat down to pull off his boots. "Just because I trust you with other people doesn't mean I trust you with yourself."

He just grunted. 342 deaths on his hands. No life was worth that. Of course she didn't trust him with himself.

Some days he was fine, he could forget about what he'd done and accept it for what it was. Other days. . . regret was a cruel master.

Clarke squatted in front of him, hands on his knees. "Look at me," she said gruffly and grabbed his hands.

342 _fucking_ _humans_ who'd stopped breathing because of him.

Her eyes were hard and unyielding. "I know what you're thinking," she said firmly, "and you can't let yourself go back to that place, you hear me?" Her voice started to shake. "We're going to make it through this, all right?"

How could they? When his dark place and her dark place were ever on the brink of overcoming them. He barely had twenty eight years under his belt and he already felt the weight of 342 lifetimes on his shoulders.

"We don't have a choice, Bellamy. We have to do this."

The sound of his own name pulled him back from the depths he was sinking into. "We don't even have a plan," he bit out, shaking his head.

Clarke squeezed his hands. "We will. We always do."

Bellamy just looked at her, worried. They'd lost so many: Finn, Wells, Atom, Dax, Connor, Myles, Roma, Charlotte. . . Who was to say that either of them wouldn't be next? "What if this time—"

"What if this is the last battle."

He frowned at her. "There's never a last battle. There's always more. There's always more death and—"

She rubbed her thumbs over the backs of his hands. "I need you, Bellamy. We can't do this without you. If we're going into a war with Mount Weather, you're the only one who can get us to the other side of that war in one piece."

Tell that to the 342 souls he could've kept out of harm's way.

Clarke's eyes read 'blind faith' and he conceded ever so slightly. "It's you they can't do without."

She shook her head. "It's _us_."


	5. Chapter 5

**Some unlikely bonding, some more likely bonding, and a different sort of bonding (aka smut, yeah, I know what you want to hear).**

It wasn't like they hated each other. Not anymore. But if there was any fondness Bellamy had for Abby, then it was for her skill with a scalpel and not for her opinions or the way she treated him.

They'd only just set off through the gates towards Mount Weather when she'd started bossing him around. Which path to take? The one she chose of course, even though he'd blatantly argued that the trail had just flooded two days ago. She'd gotten better about him over the years after she'd accepted that her daughter wasn't going to give him up but that didn't mean that dealing with her was anything he enjoyed.

"How was Clarke last night?" she asked suddenly as they walked as physically far apart from each other as possible while still staying side by side.

He gripped the rifle tighter. If there was any common ground they had, it was Clarke. "As good as she could be." He'd been the one to break, not her. She'd always been strong, sometimes too strong for her own good.

Abby just nodded slowly. "Clarke. . ." she began and then sighed. "Clarke sometimes scares me."

He tried not to look surprised because his girlfriend's mother—and future in-law?—was actually opening up to him? "Yeah, she can be too stubborn sometimes."

Abby gave him a raised-eyebrow look and he realized what he'd just said.

He opened his mouth to add that he could be as equally as temperamental when she spoke up first. "It's why you're good for each other."

Bellamy looked away, not wanting her to see his surprise. Abby had never shown much interest in getting to know him or do much in the way of making him feel welcome around her (not that he'd ever done the same). Before he could stop himself, the words were tumbling from his mouth, "I'm going to ask her to marry me." And then, quickly, before she could fight him on it. "I know that marriage down here isn't exactly what it should be, but I don't care. Like you said, we're good for each other."

The ceremonies were mostly civil affairs with none of the pre-war flourish. Weddings on the ground were maybe a little more joyous than they had been on the ark, but that didn't mean that everyone had loads of time (or clothes for that matter) to get dressed up and party.

He steeled himself for an argument because that's just what they did but Abby stopped walking completely, an undiscernible expression on her face.

Bellamy planted his feet, not sure what else to say.

Her eyes were wide but she seemed to pull herself together and offered a slight smile. "I'm surprised it took you this long. Any longer and she might have asked you herself."

Bellamy's mouth nearly fell open. An image of Clarke giving it to him straight with a clinical, "we should get married already" popped into his mind and he couldn't help but grin. "I think you may be right."

"You know her as well as I do," Abby said, admittedly a little stiffly. He knew it had been hard for her to come to terms with the fact that her daughter had found someone that she'd grown so close to. Hell, he could relate. Seeing Octavia and Lincoln together sometimes was a big kick in the gut, the fact that she had someone else she was now sharing her secrets with and that he wasn't the only one at her side anymore. That had taken a lot of getting used to.

"I know you're not asking for my permission, but. . ." She reached for him with a sympathetic smile. He looked down at her hand resting on his forearm. "I'm glad that she'll be happy. She deserves that. You both do."

A dark voice in the back of his mind urged him to acknowledge that what people deserved and what they got were rarely the same thing. "She hasn't even said yes yet."

Abby just gave him a firm stare and pulled back to her side of the trail. "I think her answer is the least of your worries."

* * *

><p>Clarke stretched the tape measure over Octavia's bare stomach, jotting down the measurement in her file. "Right on track, everything looks great," she said with a smile that matched Octavia's.<p>

With Abby gone with Bellamy to Mount Weather, Clarke had taken over the med station for the day which meant conducting the scheduled exams, Octavia's being one of them. After all the worries, all the pain and agonizing over the situation with Mount Weather that was now out of her hands, it was nice to know that _something_ was going well.

Octavia pulled her shirt down and Clarke helped her to sit up on the exam table in the otherwise empty room.

"So everything's good?" she asked tentatively and Clarke nodded.

"Absolutely perfect." Better than perfect. They _needed_ to be perfect because—Lincoln's distress aside—if anything were to happen to Octavia. . . there was only so much Bellamy could live through before he'd lose it and there'd be no returning from that.

"How's Lincoln handling everything?"

Octavia laughed while Clarke rewound the tape. "He's thrilled, if a little overbearing sometimes. I know he knows that I can handle myself but he still gets hover-y from time to time. Doesn't want me training or anything."

"You _shouldn't_ be training," Clarke insisted firmly.

"Oh I know, I'm not. Lincoln seems to think that our kid will be the greatest warrior of our time. Won't shut up about it."

Clarke laughed but she wouldn't be surprised if that proved true. Octavia and Lincoln together made possibly one of the most frightening forces in battle. She'd seen them in action before and there was next to nothing that they couldn't handle. "He'll make a good dad."

Octavia's smile lingered and she looked to Clarke curiously. "So will Bellamy."

Clarke's stomach twisted. _That_. Yes, that subject. . . Her discomfort didn't seem to phase Octavia.

"You know I'm only bringing this up all the time because everyone knows it's going to happen at some point and if _someone_ doesn't jump in and give you two a push, you'll get married when you're wrinkly and grey and too old to have kids."

"We're perfectly happy the way we are," Clarke said in a futile attempt at consoling herself more so than Octavia.

Octavia scoffed out a laugh. "You could tell me that for a week straight and I still wouldn't believe you." She hopped off the table. "I mean, it's fine if you don't want kids. Not everyone does."

"No," Clarke said immediately, because the prospect of curly blonde-haired freckled kids was definitely a sight she wanted to see someday. "I want them. It's just—" Her lips pursed as she tried to put everything that had been running through her mind into words. She swallowed, looking down at her hands. "It's sort of intimidating, you know, handing your life over to someone."

Octavia stepped closer, grasping Clarke's shoulders. "After everything that's happened, don't you think you maybe already did that a long time ago? I've spent—" she let out a breathless laugh "—too many years locked up with Bellamy to pretend I don't know him. Clarke, he loves you. . . probably as much as is humanly possible."

Clarke smiled at that, meeting Octavia's eyes and seeing Bellamy's. She saw the truth in that, because really, they'd tread too far down the path to ever turn back, so why was she scared? "So what we just get married? Then what? Keep living our lives the way they are?"

A mischievous smile spread on Octavia's face and her eyebrows shot up. "Well I'd expect some nieces and nephews at some point."

Clarke laughed and reached for Octavia's hands, grasping them tightly. She'd never expected the years to bring them as close as they were but she'd never go back. "Maybe not _that_ soon."

Something joyous flickered in Octavia's eyes. "So if he asked you to marry him, you'd say yes?"

Laughter bubbled up in Clarke's throat. "Well I very well couldn't say no, could I?"

A pleased smirk came over her face. "I guess I'll get to be the only girl in Camp Jaha with a brother and a sister."

"For now," she said, looking pointedly down at Octavia's stomach. "I have a feeling you might not be the only one for much longer."

"I think I'm okay with that."

* * *

><p>Murphy didn't know why he was heading for Mecha Station. They were probably just going to argue. They always did.<p>

She was hunched over a table spread with machine parts, tools, and roles of wires, her pony tail falling down her back while her braced leg splayed out to the side. Damn it, she was hot.

He hesitated in the doorway, glancing around the room to make sure that Wick wasn't there. The guy wasn't Murphy's favorite and it wasn't because of the way he could make Raven laugh (it wasn't).

"What the hell are we doing?" he burst out.

She jumped at his sharp bark and something let out a popping spark, a puff of smoke wafting up from whatever she'd been working on.

"Damn it, Murphy," she cursed and tossed down her pliers. She muttered something about how much she'd have to fix and looked at him with her hands on her hips.

He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, pushing his hair back from his forehead. "Sorry," he drawled which just earned him narrowed eyes.

"Don't be such an asshole."

He lifted his hands in a slight shrug. "Pots and kettles, Reyes."

She only stood there so he strode inside and shut the door behind him. "I want an answer."

Raven pursed her lips and held her ground as he approached. "Are we really having this conversation? Twelve hours ago you were complaining about not getting involved."

A little flare of panic ignited in his chest. "Yeah, well. . ." Shit, what was he supposed to say to that? "Never mind, then." He should've known better, shouldn't have wondered if anyone should ever want him as more than a body to fuck.

He whirled away to leave and was halfway back to the door before Raven spoke up, voice low and gruff. "I don't _know_ what we're doing."

Murphy turned, looking at her over his shoulder, reading the hard lines of her face. "I don't like you, Reyes. You wanted to string me up and give me to the Grounders after they'd already tortured me."

The change in the air between them was practically palpable and a guttural mix of anger, frustration, and arousal flared to life in his belly.

Annoyance swept over her face but she was walking towards him with her uneven amble. "You shot me. I hate _you_."

But then he was closing the distance between them in a few steps and crashing his lips to hers. Everything about their relationship was an oxymoron. They spoke terrible, cruel things to each other. He'd call her a bitch when she'd bite out an insult. She'd spit out "ass" in response and five minutes later her nails would be gouging at his back while his hips pounded hers into whatever closest surface they could find.

Her small—_capable_—hands tugged him close with a handful of his shirt, mouth opening against his as their teeth clacked together with the force of the kiss.

"I hate you too," he growled, grasping her hips and pushing her back towards the desk (slow so she could manage with her brace).

"I _really_ hate you," she moaned as she grasped at the nape of his neck, sucking his lower lip between hers.

Murphy grumbled out a thought he hadn't bothered to put into words and reached down to jerk her good leg around his hip. The force of his body pressing into hers had her leaning back over the table.

A breathy pant escaped her mouth as he ground into her, pushing back whatever the hell was on the table behind her with fumbling hands. By the time he'd lifted her up onto the clear edge, she'd tugged his belt free and had his pants down over his ass.

"Someone could walk in," she moaned when his head ducked down to her jaw, nipping and sucking his way down the long column of her throat. Her skin tasted smoky, like she'd been standing too close to the fire, the faint burn of salty perspiration barely perceptible.

Her heels dug into his ass, tugging him impossibly closer while he popped the button on her pants. "I don't give a fuck," he grunted and she tugged off her boot and lifted herself off the table so he could drag her pants and shorts off one leg. The brace was too much to fiddle with when he was hard and sliding against her wet folds.

Every nerve in his body was a light at the insistent press of her hands over the taught skin below his navel. Impatience and arousal flared to life in his belly as grasped his length and positioned him.

_Fuck_. She whimpered when he sank into her and his eyes slipped shut, head falling to her shoulder at the slick heat clenching around him. His blood ran hot through his veins, throbbing as she rocked her hips against the rhythm he picked up.

Nothing in the way she writhed against him read hate, or even dislike. If he truly hated her, he wouldn't be panting into the side of her neck or knotting his fingers in her hair falling from its ponytail as he pounded his hips into hers.

Mumbled curses escaped with her breath at each thrust. She reached between them but he pushed her hand away because _damn it_, there was no way he'd let her finish herself. It was a matter of personal pride. He wasn't one of those guys who'd just slam into her and ignore the fact that she needed more than a dick to climax.

"I fucking cannot stand you," he muttered into her as she gasped at the rough press of his fingertips over her clit.

She squirmed against the steady beat of his hips and he could feel himself already approaching the edge.

"You're probably too fucked up, even for me," he growled and Raven clenched tighter around him, hot pants washing over the side of his neck. His thrusts quickened in fast, uneven jerks while he held her hips steady. _Not true, not true_.

And fuck, he could tell she was close and he was sweating trying to hold out but then she moaned his name in a slow, breathless whine and he lost it.

With a grunt at the waves of pleasure crashing over him, his head dropped to her shoulder, her hands digging into his biceps. And then her breath caught, small noises escaping with each gasp. He held her as her body shuddered, muscles tense, face buried in his neck.

As he came back to himself, still riding the high, he realized that her thighs were shaking, hooked around his hips, and that a few stray wires were pricking into his palm where he'd braced it on the table. A slow smirk spread over his face.

"This isn't helping us figure anything out," she said into his shoulder, fingers loosening their grip on his arms as he wiped his hand on his shirt.

He wanted to stay there, close to her because she wasn't pulling away like everyone else, whispering and shirking away when he got close. He carefully pulled out of her, tucking himself back into his briefs while she pulled up her pants.

Murphy didn't step away from between her legs, hanging now with just one boot on, and she didn't ask him to or make any move to hop off the table. "Is there anything to figure out?" he tested, giving her the chance to get out if she wanted to.

Raven studied his face, playing with the hem of his shirt. Her cheeks were still flushed and a few strands of hair stuck to her forehead. What was he supposed to say? Every part of him functioned in anger, bitterness, and he wouldn't blame her for not wanting to deal with that. "Don't pretend there isn't."

He was hard-pressed to deny her. Somewhere along the road they'd happened down together, the "I hate you's," the insults, the jibes had lost their literal meaning. He'd ignored it; she'd ignored it. It was just easier that way.

The irony of a remembered line came back to him and he let out a bitter laugh.

"What?" she frowned.

Simple. Impossibly and desperately simple. Instead of answering, he put a hand to her cheek, thumb just in front of her ear, and leaned forwards to press his lips to hers.

"What?" she murmured in a low voice while their mouths hovered close. Her palms pressed to his chest and he hoped she couldn't feel the rapid pounding of his heart.

It was stupid to compare their lives to that fucked up tragedy. He hadn't seen her across the room and fallen in love with her, or fallen in hate for that matter.

There was no prejudice working against either of them, no great family feud to give them reason to hate; they had that all on their own.

It was be odd to say it, old eloquent English sticking out like a sore thumb. But screw it, he didn't follow the rules anyway.

"Shakespeare," he said, kissing her soundly, and when he pulled back, as quiet as he could manage: "My only love sprung from my only hate."

Raven stiffened against him at first, then pulled back to look him in the eyes. He braced himself for a slap, a punch, anything.

It took her a moment to respond but then she just reached her arms to clasp them behind his neck. "If you expect me to kill myself when you die, you're out of luck." Her head tilted to the side, a hint of a smile on her lips.

He grunted. "Fair enough, Reyes. Fair enough." And leaned in to kiss her again.

**Sorry if you wanted Bellarke smut (don't worry, it's coming ;)) but I couldn't help myself. As always, thanks for the reviews! Some upcoming things for future chapters: more Linctavia, more smut, more Murphy (because, let's be honest, I really can't stop writing about him). Any opinions on any of that? I know I probably made it seem like there'd be more Linctavia, so I wanted to hold myself to that. Another FYI thing, I'm considering this being my last story and posting solely on Ao3 and Tumblr (our-princess-has-that-effect) just for simplicity's sake. **


	6. Chapter 6

**All right, updating day changed to Monday since that seems like when I'll actually get these out. Some council explanations, Murven weirdness, and Bellarke quiet (*cough*sexy*cough*) time. **

"Mount Weather has agreed to a renewed treaty under several circumstances," Abby said from her seat at the oval council table.

Clarke barely heard her mother and glanced across to Bellamy. They hadn't exchanged any words since he and Abby had walked through the gates, but she knew the trip back to the mountain had been a literal venture into his nightmares. His eyes were dark and hard now, a permanent crease in his brow. Impatience and worry had her foot rapping against the floor.

"Dr. Tsing was performing tests on infants that they'd 'bred' through the Grounders. Apparently the genes are strong enough to overcome the radiation and metabolize it for short periods of time, but it's no long term solution. They need _our_ genetic contributions for the next generation to survive the ground."

Clarke's heart dropped into her stomach. She was vaguely aware of the rest of the council shifting in discomfort. Tests on adults was one thing; pregnant women and children? Unjustifiable.

So the woman she and Murphy had seen in the hospital had been a test subject. Possibilities ran through the part of her mind that wasn't worrying about Bellamy. The woman had claimed that Dr. Tsing hadn't harmed her and that everything had been voluntary, but that didn't mean that it was right.

Across the table, Bellamy's eyes found hers and she could see the anger flashing in him, the fury in his strained neck and crossed arms. "That woman needs to be dealt with," he spat and Clarke flinched.

She hadn't heard that tone in years, the unbridled anger that had found its way back since his original visit to Mount Weather.

"I know you have your previous. . . encounters with Dr. Tsing acting against your judgment in this, but we need to keep our heads," Kane cautioned.

_Shit_. Clarke's eyes flashed to Bellamy. Just thinking about finding him caged, pale, and broken was enough to send a nauseated shift to her stomach. She'd tried to imagine how he'd felt, but couldn't manage it. The last thing Kane should've done was to underestimate what Bellamy had been through.

"No one should be pardoned of the crimes she's committed," Bellamy growled.

Clarke nodded, releasing a pent up breath. "We can't trust her. I don't care if she's the most valuable scientist they have, she'll never stop trying to get what she wants, when she wants."

Her mother's face hardened. "That's why I'm going to supervise her."

A shocked moment of silence hung in the air until Kane broke it with a slap on the table. "You can't just live in Mount Weather, Abby. And I doubt this doctor will be cooperative." A glance to Bellamy.

Abby glared back at him. "She will be if she gets what she wants."

Clarke didn't miss the way Bellamy shook his head, nose wrinkling in a sneer. Whatever her mother was planning, Clarke wasn't sure if she agreed with it.

"Or we could just bust the doors down and be done with the lot of them." Kill them all within minutes of radiation exposure. Clarke wasn't sure if the drop of her stomach was from the prospect of killing near half a thousand people at the mere opening of a door or that part of her agreed with him.

Every eye in the room turned to Abby for her to give her two cents towards Bellamy's outburst.

"That is _not_ an option. They're just trying to survive." She shook her head, looking wan in the white lights from above.

Bellamy snorted. "Maybe they don't deserve to survive."

Clarke's eyes dropped and she thought back to their first days on the ground. Bellamy was thinking like he had then and that scared her. "And we do?"

The question hung in the terse air.

"Mr. Blake, if you can't control yourself, you can be excused from this meeting," Kane warned and no one acknowledged Clarke's question.

She wasn't even sure she wanted them to.

"What are the other terms?" Councilman Quinn asked, a soft spoken man who never failed to avoid any confrontations.

Abby took a breath and laced her fingers together on the cold tabletop. "They want to use our genes to produce viable, radiation-resistant offspring, and I think we should let them."

Clarke frowned. "I wouldn't expect many volunteers for that." It was one thing to give blood to Mount Weather, but genetic material to pass onto a new generation? That didn't sit well in her gut.

"They only need sperm," Abby remarked.

"_I wouldn't expect many volunteers_," Clarke repeated. Because really, Mount Weather had screwed over too many people's families for them to want to help in any way, shape, or form.

"It's either that or be cut off completely and we can't afford that," Abby insisted, voice sharp.

Clarke chewed on her lip, catching Bellamy's eyes. _Please no_, he begged, eyes widening.

She gave a slight shake of her head. _There aren't any other options. We have to_.

* * *

><p>"Keeping up lonely appearances, I see," Murphy said as he sunk down into a chair across from Raven. He placed his plate near her half empty one and let it steam in the cool night air.<p>

She glanced up at him through dark eyelashes, curious instead of just blindly contempt. "You're one to talk."

True, the both of them had developed a sort of loner status. Murphy because he was under the impression that everyone hated him and Raven because she'd never recovered from their first year on the ground.

Murphy pushed his hair back from his forehead and opted out of the sarcastic comment that only naturally rose to his tongue. "Did you hear about the council?"

One dark eyebrow shot up. "Do I look like I live under a rock?"

"I'd live under a rock if you were there with me." Shit, where had that come from? He'd just wanted to talk about anything—everything. Not some stupid pick up line.

The comment hung in the air for half a second too soon and his stomach dropped. _Well there goes that_. And to think he'd been actually making a friend.

But then Raven's hard stare cracked and a smile twisted at her lips. "You know you're not very good at this whole "pleasant conversation" deal, right?"

He looked down at his plate, suddenly feeling nauseated. "Gonna rub it in my face or answer my damn question?"

Raven leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms, a line deepening in her slight cleavage. "I'm thinking about it."

Murphy rolled his eyes, smirking. "Well think faster." His stomach eased at her joke, the embarrassment fading.

Raven smiled and a little burst of triumph surged through his chest. She was hot when she was mad, yeah, but. . . there was something in her smile that made him want to make her laugh again.

"I guess I'll let you off the hook," she said nonchalantly but then something hardened in her eyes. "What did you think about the council's decision?"

"There's too many messed up things on the ground and Mount Weather is probably at the top of that list. I don't really want to think about those experiments."

Panic burst in his chest because the smile was completely gone from her face now and she looked away from him. It was like staring in a mirror sometimes when he looked at her and the pain and bitterness she held. There was no way in hell he'd wish that on anyone. "This isn't exactly the most uplifting dinner conversation."

He dug into his smoked boar before anything else could slip out of his mouth and he'd screw himself over yet again.

She was eyeing him though, not touching her food, and after a moment she broke the silence of his clinking tin plate and fork. "So are you gonna volunteer?"

Murphy scoffed at that, swallowing and wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve. The council had made an "official announcement" asking for volunteers—really just healthy males—to donate their "genetic makeup" towards Mount Weather's research efforts. Point blank, he'd realized they just wanted him to jack off into a bottle so some woman in Mount Weather could have his radiation-metabolizing kid. He'd known the answer before he'd even processed it.

"Hell no." He stirred around the boiled vegetables on his plate.

"So you're just going to leave them to die?" Raven's expression was unreadable and he shifted in his seat under her gaze. He knew she was expecting a specific answer from him and that unnerved him, that he wanted to please her.

"I'm not keen on helping anyone in particular, much less those fuck-ups."

She chewed on her lip. Shit, was that the wrong thing to say? Why did he even care? But he knew the answer to that. After the previous day, they'd settled into an odd sort of limbo, not fighting but not affectionate either. They'd barely even touched, sleeping the nights in their separate rooms. He'd been itching to see her all day like some lovelorn idiot.

"Give me one reason why I should help them."

Raven shrugged, neutral expression softening her eyes. "Never said you should."

"You're being pretty obvious, Raven." Her name felt odd on his tongue. Usually she was "Reyes" and "Raven" sounded oddly intimate.

Something in her eyes flashed at the use of her first name. "Of everyone in this camp," she offered quietly and surprisingly not confrontationally. "I don't think you have room to judge. You don't have to hate everyone, you know."

He swallowed past the knot in his throat. "Everyone hates me, so why should I not hate them." It wasn't a question.

"Maybe you should start giving them reasons not to hate you, then."

"They're not going to like me just because I help out Mount Weather." Hell, they might even hate him even more.

"_I_ will."

He met her eyes and saw the blunt honesty in them. God, he wanted to kiss her. "Okay."

He wanted to say he wasn't doing it for her benefit, that he wasn't eager to please her because after all he'd done to her and after all she'd done to him, she'd forgiven him for his crimes. He wanted to tell her that he hadn't just given in because he was in love with her.

But that would have been a lie.

* * *

><p>The moment Bellamy crossed over the threshold of their cabin, Clarke saw the sag of his shoulders and the weariness that dragged at his limbs.<p>

"Bellamy—"

He didn't reply, just moved around the dark cabin to set his pack on the bed. He hadn't been home since he'd walked through the gates that afternoon with her mother after a single night in Mount Weather. One night too many.

She shouldn't have let him go. Shouldn't have _ever_ let him go.

"I'll get the fire started," he just murmured and kissed her forehead before striding out the door to the stack of firewood around back.

Clarke let out the breath she'd been holding, rubbing her hands down her face and sitting down to unlace her boots. The council meeting had lasted practically all day and they'd only just eaten dinner but she already wanted to fall into bed and she suspected Bellamy wanted to do the same.

She changed quickly in the dark room, releasing her hair from its band, and when Bellamy came in a few minutes later with a few logs and an armful of kindling, she was already in a loose shirt of his, her hair falling around her shoulders. She watched him carefully as he knelt in front of the grate.

"Clarke," he said quietly as he put the final log on. "Stop worrying about me." He reached for the flint and waited until the first few twigs caught.

"What else am I supposed to do?"

He rose warily, like everything hurt when he moved. "Let's just go to bed."

Sympathy ached in her chest. She wanted to do anything and everything for him, to help him heal like he'd done for her.

So she followed him to the bed and stilled his hands after he'd taken off his jacket, pulling his shirt over his head for him.

Bellamy gave her a curious look when she ran her hands up the warm planes of his chest and reached up to press a slow kiss to his cheek. His arms drifted up around her waist. "I'm a little tired for—"

She kissed him and gently pushed him down to sit on the mattress. "You don't have to do any work."

There was a moment of hesitance in the way his head tilted up to hers but then he seemed to relinquish, leaning back on his hands. She unlaced his boots, sliding his socks of his feet and then rose between his legs to pop the button on his pants and pull them down his strong legs.

Clarke could feel his eyes on her, watching every move she made as she stood to pull her shirt over her head and step out of her panties. The cool air hit her nipples the moment she cast her clothes aside, sending a shiver down her spine.

There was still a fatigued glaze to his eyes but also curiosity and admiration as she closed the distance between them and ran her hands through his tangled curls, smoothing them back from his forehead. His chin tilted up towards her, palms holding her hips.

"I'm just—" he began.

Clarke shook her head. "Shh, I know, that's why I'm taking care of you tonight." Mount Weather had broken him, and she knew she couldn't fix him. Only he could do that. But at least she could help him forget.

She braced her hands on his shoulders to straddle his lap, bending to press a gentle kiss to his forehead. She was slow to move her lips down his cheek, palms soothing over his back, taking her time to make sure he knew how much she loved him, that she cared for him, that she was sorry for sending him away those four years ago.

Bellamy eased into her touch, turning his head slightly when she nuzzled into his neck, nibbling at his pulse point until she could feel him start to stir beneath her. His heart was slamming against his rib cage beneath her fingertips.

She carefully pushed him back on the bed, rocking her hips against the growing hardness between them. Despite the heaviness weighing at her chest, she couldn't ignore the heat pooling in her stomach, igniting with every brush of her lips over his jaw, every press of his fingertips along her spine.

"I love you," she murmured when she reached between them to pull his dark briefs down his legs. "You'll always have me."

His torso tensed as she rose over his thighs, kissing a line along the dip of his abdominals as she rose back up his body.

"Clarke—" he breathed, fingers tangling in her hair as he pulled her the rest of the way to his mouth.

Every movement was firm and deliberate, slow to heat as she lifted to position herself, his eyes on her as she sank down onto him with a satisfied groan.

Clarke read the dark hunger in his eyes, the firm grip he held on her hips as she rolled out a steady rhythm. She'd never tire of the way he filled her, hot and hard and everything she craved.

"Bellamy, I love you," she repeated and intertwined their fingers while she continued the even pace against him, taking it slow and savoring every torturous press of their bodies.

He didn't pick up the pace as he usually did, didn't roll onto her or snap his hips up to meet hers. He just let her keep the languid pace that she only gradually increased when she felt him responding beneath her.

She wanted him to know, wanted him to hear with every moan that escaped her lips, wanted him to feel with every writhe of her torso that she cared for him. She wanted him to heal.

So when his palms marked straining lines down her back and his head fell against the bed, she jerked her hips thrice more, bending to suck at his pulse point until his Adam's apple bobbed and she felt him shudder beneath her.

She was nowhere near close, though, throbbing even when she pulled off of him but content to leave herself unsatisfied in favor of holding him close whole he recovered, whispering over and over again how much she loved him.

At last Bellamy's breaths against her throat eased and his arms wrapped around her back, curling her into his side. "I love you too," he whispered as he nuzzled into her hair. She clasped her hand tightly in his, fearfully almost that he'd slip back into his old mindset.

"I'm not letting anything happen to you again," she murmured in return and pressed her head into his shoulder. She wished and pleaded that they could just heal, that Bellamy wouldn't wake up screaming in the middle of the night any longer.

Just when she thought he'd settled into sleep, his wide palm drifted down her side, gliding over the soft skin of her hip. "If you think you're getting away without anything in return, you're insane," he muttered into Clarke's throat and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the hollow beneath her ear.

A smile rose to her lips, not at the growled undertones of reciprocation but because there was a lightness back in his tone, not a complete recovery but on the way towards one.

"I wasn't going to ask for it," she said through a smile as he rolled onto his side, forcing her onto her back. A test along her slit first, her thighs tensing in faded arousal. "But if you insist. . ."

She felt him grin into her neck and nip at her skin. "Mmm, well, I think I do insist."

Part of her knew that this was just another distraction for him, another way of drowning out the depression, the trauma that weighed on his mind. The other part was more than glad to provide a distraction because—oh—the rough pads of his fingertips were circling her clit, slick with wetness from her center.

She grabbed onto his arm, firm bicep tense as his fingers worked her into fresh arousal. With each circle and press of his forefinger, she wound tighter and tighter, whimpering into his shoulder.

"Getting close, Princess?" he teased when he sunk one finger into her. His thumb found her clit and he added a second finger while she melted into a puddle of heat.

"Mmph," she moaned in response, toes curling in the blankets.

He curled his finger against her walls, sending a low jolt of pleasure through her belly. Her grip instinctively tightened on his arm.

"Just a little—"

His thumb slid over her in steady, torturous succession.

Clarke gasped, bucking against his thumb as her eyes rolled back in her head at the waves wracking through every nerve in her body.

Bellamy's mouth found hers and he kissed her deeply as she rode out her orgasm. He pulled on her lip, drawing out the soft noises that escaped with each breath until she was left taught and trembling.

"You know, I get to take care of you too sometimes," he whispered into the corner of her mouth.

Her grip eased on his powerful arm, a mumbled collection of syllables falling from her lips, coherent speech just beyond her grasp.

She looked up into his dark eyes, his pupils blown wide, searching for any hint of pain he might have been trying to hide.

He stroked a line along her jaw, eyes flickering down to her lips when she tangled her legs with his. "It's been a rough couple of days."

A sigh escaped before she could contain it. "It's been a rough couple of years."

He wet his lips, brow furrowing. "I hope you know that I have no intentions of helping them."

She winced internally at the change of direction. As of late, their pillow talk always seemed to turn to the task at hand, the politics behind decisions. It always had. Those were just the kind of people they were. "I would be surprised if you'd said anything else." Especially after his outbursts in the council chamber that afternoon.

Silence hung between them for a moment, the fire crackling on the other end of the room.

"Octavia's doing well so far," Clarke said, tracing a pattern on his collar bone, across the top of his pectorals. "She's in perfect health. And so is the baby. They'll make a good family." She couldn't help but think of she and Octavia's conversation about marriage. She really shouldn't have any doubts about Bellamy, not after everything they'd been through.

His breath ruffled her hair. "At least there's something good happening. We all need that." He kissed her temple.

_A wedding would make people happy too_.

"Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?" she asked instead.

Bellamy pulled her closer, drawing the blanket up over their legs. "Hm, I don't know. Either way they'll love it. And so will we."

Clarke ducked her head at the "we," staring at the dark stubble on his chin. She bit her lip. "And what would you want, a boy or a girl?"

His palm paused on her back. She held her breath until he released his and he pressed his nose into her hair. "Either I suppose," he murmured. "Girls are nicer than boys until they hit puberty. But I don't know, there's something appealing about having a son."

An image flashed through Clarke's mind: a little boy with dark hair and light eyes. A toddler who giggled and could run in the summer grass and whose skin was absolutely covered in freckles. Her stomach did a somersault.

"Clarke?"

She jolted back into herself. "Yeah that's—I think so too."

She risked a glance up to his face and saw an odd, nervous look in his eye. He caught her hand over his heart as it pounded out a reassuring rhythm through his ribcage.

Something hovered between them, but neither one of them seemed willing to cross over the brink of it into whatever awaited on the other side.

"Let's get some sleep," Clarke said after a moment, giving into the fatigue pulling at her limbs.

He hummed out a mumbled response and she leaned up to kiss his lips before settling along the length of his body, his hand still over hers.

"Goodnight, Bellamy."

His fingers stroked over hers. "Goodnight, Princess."

It wasn't until she was on the brink of sleep that she realized he was stroking her ring finger.


	7. Chapter 7

**PREPARE YOURSELVES.**

A month passed in tentative peace with Mount Weather. Abby left with a guard that rotated every week, reporting back her research with Dr. Tsing. So far so good, it seemed, volunteers for the trial run were ready, and most were already pregnant with the first round of children fit for the ground.

Still, Clarke had her doubts, and she knew Bellamy and the rest of the delinquents did too. How could they not? It seemed suspicious to her that Dr. Tsing would give in so easily. Nothing about her read 'surrender.'

But nothing out of the ordinary happened, so Bellamy busied himself with the guard, and Clarke was satisfied with absorbing herself in taking over medical operations in lieu of her mother. Which in turn meant that she had a firsthand glimpse to the population boom that had been going strong for the past few years. The young women reported to her with makeshift wedding rings on their fingers, babbling and excited about the new additions to their families.

Clarke saw to them with smiles and a sharp pain in her gut, glad that they were settling in on the ground, but also jealous that their lives seemed to be all sorted out. What did she have? A boyfriend who collapsed into bed at night and usually was out of the house before she'd even gotten up. Some of the women were even younger than she was.

She and Bellamy had settled back into their odd sort of limbo, and Clarke was almost too frustrated with his apparent lack of action to take matters into her own hands. The worry for her mother was still fresh in her mind, what would happen if Mount Weather decided that they didn't want to cooperate anymore. The constant fear tugging at her stomach eased her mind away from Bellamy and that was that. The carried on.

The days were shortening as winter's clutches set in, chilling them with frost in the mornings and icy winds in the day that bit through their clothes and chapped their cheeks and lips.

The first snowfall of the year came on a freezing evening in mid-November when she and Bellamy and a haphazard group of their friends packed into Lincoln and Octavia's cabin, sharing moonshine—and cider in Octavia's case—in front of the warm fire that kept the cold at bay.

Miller was showing off his new tattoo—courtesy of Lincoln—to Harper while Jasper attempted to teach anyone who would listen the new card game he'd invented while high on questionable herbs.

Clarke sat on the floor leaning on Octavia's legs, relaxing to the feel of her long fingers running through her hair. She twisted it into braids only to unwind them and start again, going on about the different grounder hairstyles and what they meant.

Jasper's voice carried across the room and Clarke saw Bellamy and Lincoln turn from where they were standing next to the fire, glancing at the man who was snorting with laughter. "And then, you'll never believe—the raccoon jumped straight for me!" He imitated the apparent lunge with wide eyes. "Luckily the fight didn't last long and he got away before I beat his ass too bad."

Clarke watched Bellamy roll his eyes, taking another swig of moonshine. They'd heard the story a thousand times and somehow it was always different. She met his eyes across the room and they shared a small smile, which Octavia interrupted with a particularly sharp tug to untangle a snarl in Clarke's hair.

"Your hair is even worse than I thought," she snorted, yanking again.

Clarke winced at the sudden watering of her eyes as Octavia worked her fingers through. "It's not like we have much to go by here. Or the time."

She could practically see the roll of Octavia's eyes: a Blake trait if there ever was one. "You're just saying that because you don't want to put the effort in."

_Well it's not like Bellamy would notice if I changed anything_, she thought, immediately knowing it wasn't true, but just shrugged. "What's the matter with that?"

"If I can find the time, then so can you," Octavia insisted and Clarke couldn't hold back a smile. She'd never had many girl friends growing up, Wells the only constant. Octavia made her realize how much she'd been missing with all the hair braiding, late night talk, and female comfort only a woman could provide. "Clean hair is overrated. Besides, you're hot enough that you can work it."

Clarke laughed at that. Of all the words she'd choose to describe herself, "hot" wasn't one of them. "I hardly think that's—"

"Bell, tell her she's hot," Octavia said and Clarke found herself blushing under his calculating gaze.

Monty was _giggling_, a suspiciously empty cup in his hands. Suddenly everyone seemed to be glancing over to them, probably curious at the rare glimpse of affection they got into their lives.

Bellamy grunted, eye contact wavering only when his gaze flashed down to the undone top button of her shirt then down to her legs curled against her chest. "Hell yeah, you're hot."

Her cheeks were embarrassingly warm but she just looked down and everyone else seemed to carry on with their conversations.

Eventually Octavia pulled Clarke up into the chair with her and they laughed around their tangle of arms and legs, talking about the baby while Octavia pulled up her shirt to show off the bump that was starting to fill out from just a swell.

At one point she felt eyes on her and glanced up to see Bellamy staring at the two of them with an odd expression on his face. He didn't drop her gaze and she just gave him a questioning look.

But he just turned away and stared into his hands.

* * *

><p>Clarke was only just getting past tipsy when they parted ways later that night, Bellamy's arm around her as they traipsed through the pilling snow to their cabin a few rows away. They'd warmed up to each other as the night went on, after his weird look, and she didn't know if it was the moonshine or just the night but she wasn't even sure if she cared.<p>

"How much did you have to drink?" he laughed when she stumbled over a rock hidden in the snow.

"Not much!" she insisted and clutched onto his jacket. Nearby came the thud of a snowball breaking on the side of a cabin and Jasper's cackling laugh echoed through the brisk night followed by Monty and Harper's retaliation.

"Not as much as those three at least," Bellamy grumbled and she just laughed at how easily he could morph into a grumpy old man.

"Let them have their fun," she chided because her chest suddenly ached. Better to cope with all that they'd been through with laughter than with tears and anger and pent up fury at the world.

Bellamy just smiled with a shake of his head and she huddled closer into his side at a sudden gust of wind that blasted her hair back from her face.

"Goddman winter," he mumbled and pulled her tighter against his side.

Clarke wasn't one to argue but she couldn't resist a laugh at his complaints. "Race you?" she said suddenly, grinning up at him.

He looked down at her like a grumpy hedgehog, nestled into the scarf wrapped around his neck, flurries caught in his wind-whipped curls. "What?"

But she was already laughing and taking off down the row of silent cabins with snow settling peacefully around them. Because they were still young and severity be damned, sometimes it was nice to just have some _fun_. She'd forgotten what it felt like to just relax with Bellamy, especially with the tense set of things recently.

A shriek of laughter escaped when he was suddenly barreling past her. She caught the back of his jacket, tugging in an attempt to slow him down as they passed the Mason's house.

Her nose was pink with cold, her cheeks blotchy, when they stumbled with laughter up to their cabin, fighting breathlessly for the first touch to the door.

Clarke won, slipping under his arm and slapping the wood with a triumphant grin.

He was breathless and laughing, practically running into her, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

She faced him, back against the door, smug and wanting to flaunt it. "I won."

He grinned down at her, pressing his cold palms against her flushed cheeks. "Yes, I can see that, Princess."

She met his eyes, fingers curling in the front of his coat. "What's my reward?" she asked, voice low, hyper aware of how close he was, his hips framing hers.

He hummed, the sound rumbling in his throat. Excitement fluttered in her chest with her quick breaths. "I can think of a few things," he murmured as his lips ducked down to hers.

They were cold, his fingertips colder when they slipped down to her back. It was a breathless kiss, open-mouthed with adrenaline pumping through their veins. His hips pressed her into the door, warmth pulsing down her spine and chasing away the chill of the night.

When their lips parted and he bent to trace a line down her chin, sucking on her pulse point, her breaths fogged in the air. "You call this a reward?" she teased, her voice betraying her.

Damn his lips. Damn his tongue. Damn his fingers digging into skin of her hips.

Bellamy ground into her, a groan low in his throat while her fingers fumbled for the doorknob.

They were a mess of limbs as they stumbled inside, cheeks flushed. She unwound his scarf and his numb fingers grappled with the buttons on her coat.

And then they were falling into bed, huddling under the furs in the cold room. Clarke laughed at the scrape of his icy chin and stubble along her breast and his attempts at warming her up, rubbing her arms and legs.

When he finally rolled on top of her, she was still chuckling and then _not_, clutching at his shoulders when he sank into her.

By the time his thrusts were unevenly rocking their bed into the wall, the cold had dissipated from the room, replaced with the heat of his body above her, in her, and the warmth of his panted breaths against her bare shoulder.

In the past month, their sex had been anything but desperate, sometimes feeling more like a task than an enjoyable end to the day. But when she was trembling and sweaty beneath him, noises escaping with each breath, he jerked her farther under him, grinding directly down on her clit.

Her fingers marked red lines on the tan skin of his back. She came undone in moments.

After they'd untangled themselves, falling back on the mattress, quivering and breathless, Clarke's lips spread into a slow grin.

"We haven't done that in a while," she grinned and curved into his side, walking her fingers up the dip between his pectorals.

His arm came up around her as he turned to kiss her forehead. "It's been too long." She recognized the underlying acknowledgement in his tone: something _had_ been off.

They slipped into silence, unwilling to directly address whatever tension had been building between them.

Clarke's worries began to seep back but she shoved the thought of her mother in Mount Weather aside. She was fine. She'd lasted a month and there was no sign that anything was going wrong. But that didn't stop the thoughts from slipping in anyway.

Nights were the worst; they always had been, especially recently. So she nuzzled into the crook of his neck and breathed him in.

Bellamy pulled her closer with a light palm on her lower back and ducked his head. "You know I love you, right?" There was a hesitance in the way he asked, whispering against her temple, as if he really couldn't be sure.

"Mmm," she assented. Because how could he think that she didn't? Her stomach jolted at the remembered pain of sending him to Mount Weather in the first place. "I love you too." Her stomach knotted itself like it hadn't done in years, not since they'd been fumbling through a relationship neither of them quite understood.

Perhaps they'd never really left that phase.

* * *

><p>Clarke eased out of sleep the next morning, unusually warm, and shifted in bed, only to feel the heavy weight of Bellamy's arm encircling her waist. His breath ruffled the back of her neck and his arm twitched under her head.<p>

"Mhm," she grumbled, still half asleep and felt his arm tighten around her, pulling her back against his bare chest.

"It's too early to get up," he mumbled, pressing a sloppy kiss against her shoulder.

A slight laugh escaped but she couldn't really argue, didn't have the strength to, not when things were finally going so well.

But when she finally pulled from his reaching arms, he groaned out a complaint. She just laughed and grabbed the closest piece of clothing she could find to shield against the cold.

It ended up being Bellamy's long-sleeved knit shirt from last night, but before she could tug it over her naked form, Bellamy let out a low whistle. "Damn, am I lucky."

He chuckled and ducked behind his pillow at the bunched up pair of pants that flew at his head. "You bet your ass you're lucky," she snorted and rustled around for some clean underwear.

There weren't any council activities that day but there was still plenty to do around camp and she already had a late start. As much as she enjoyed their personal time, she still had a job to do. They both did.

But as soon as she'd pulled on her pants and boots, and opened the door, surprise hit her.

Snow was piled up around their cabin in mounded drifts, effectively turning as much of the camp as she could see into a heaped winter wonderland of snow and ice. So much for getting anything done.

"You're letting all the cold air in," Bellamy complained from the bed and Clarke just rolled her eyes at his laziness.

"I've got to go get wood."

"I've got plenty of that right here," he smirked and she just ignored him, shuffling out into the drifts to get around back where they kept the firewood.

There were several kids laughing nearby but no one was in sight. Good. At this point, staying in the cabins was the best remedy. Besides, everyone deserved a snow day. The giddy childlike part of her was just as excited as the kids she saw chasing each other through the snow, while the rest of her just wanted to use the day to lie around in the house with nothing to do and nowhere to be.

When she opened the door, arms full of logs, Bellamy was sitting on the edge of their bed, hair a tangled mess of curls. "So, looks like we've got the day off?" he smiled as she kicked the door shut behind her.

"Looks like it. No one's gonna make it anywhere in all that."

"You know I could've gone out to get that," he said, nodding to the stack of wood she piled next to the fireplace.

"You didn't look like you were getting out of bed anytime soon," she said wryly and eyed his bare ass as he crossed the room to peer out the crack in the shutters. She would've laughed and told him to put on some damn pants but the view was too good to refuse.

* * *

><p>Apparently a snow day was just what they needed. They spent the morning lounging around in bed, talking about everything that didn't matter. Bellamy cooked a pair of potatoes in the fire for lunch and then they sat on the hearth, laughing over the few fond memories they had on the ground.<p>

At some point, his head ended up in her lap and she ran her fingers through his curls, smiling to herself at the way they poofed up in every direction.

He didn't even realize what she'd done until he sat up and tried to say something sincere and she'd just burst into a fit of laughter. How could she not when he was sitting there in just his underwear and socks, hair sticking straight from his head, looking insane?

At one point Lincoln swung by to check up on them and that they had enough food to get them through the day. He didn't even seem phased by the snow and didn't comment on the blanket around Bellamy's waist or the fact that Clarke was wearing nothing but a shirt several sizes too big for her.

They had potatoes again for dinner because there was nothing else in the house, and eventually as night's cold seeped through the chinks in the walls, Bellamy dragged the blankets and furs off the bed and they nested in front of the fire. By that time, they'd run out of words, turning to touches and kisses instead.

Every caress and touch of lips was slow and lazy, hands drifting over bare skin, lips drawing out small noises that the crackle of the fire overshadowed.

Clarke was astounded at how peaceful she was, that there wasn't a knot in her shoulders or lines in her palms from her nails digging into her skin. She'd forgotten what it felt like to just be with him, wrapped in a blanket in front of the fire in Bellamy's arms, head against his chest while he played with the ends of her hair. And it was then that she realized she was content to have him any way she could, marriage or no.

He shifted, kissing her forehead as he rose. "Wait here a second."

She was facing the fire and didn't question him. "It's not like I have anywhere to go," she laughed and heard a drawer opening. "What are you doing?"

"Just, uh, looking for something," he said casually, something in his voice sounding off.

She was curious what he could possibly be looking for but kept quiet, listing to him rustle around until he came to sit back down next to her, apparently empty handed. His strong arms came around her, tugging her sideways into his lap, and she smiled, resting her head in the crook of his neck while he wrapped the blanket around the both of them.

He took her hand, fiddling with her fingers while her eyes slipped shut and she let out a contented hum into his collar bone.

And then she realized how fast his pulse raced and that his palms were clammy.

He slipped something onto her finger. Her breath caught in her throat. Was that—?

His nose touched her cheek and his lips brushed over her ear. "Marry me." It was no more than a whisper, a mumble clear as day.

Her finger traced the circle of cool metal and her heart quickened so fast she wasn't sure if anything was real or not. She swallowed past the knot in her throat and looked up to him, the the calm assurance in his eyes.

She knew without a doubt. She'd known for a while. They were partners, friends, allies, leaders. They didn't belong to each other but they'd still willingly given themselves to the other in blind—and not so blind—trust.

Clarke lifted a hand to his cheek and he turned just so to press a kiss to her palm. The ring stood out on her finger, shining in the firelight. A thin, plain band of gold: nothing fancy, no stone, no engraving, but a ring nonetheless.

"Took you long enough," she murmured with a smile and leaned forwards to press a gentle kiss to his lips.

He withdrew after a moment and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, drawing him in for a hug, staring at the way the ring looked on her finger. She liked it. Simple. Strong. A fitting representation.

"You haven't said yes yet," he whispered and laughter bubbled up in her throat because it all seemed impossible, like a dream.

"Of course it's a yes," she laughed and then he was laughing too, squeezing her into a swaying hug.

"It had better be."

It seemed silly almost, that she should be this happy on the ground where there were people who wanted her dead, where so many had sacrificed their lives in wars they didn't have a chance at stopping. But she _was_ happy. Because she had him and he had her. And in all the horrors of the world, that was enough.

**Next update won't be for two weeks because I'm participating in the Bellarke Fic Week starting on Valentines Day. Come check it out if you want to! (I'm our-princess-has-that-effect)**


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